Ngozi Nwokeukwu

Dr. Muniz-Villalon

English 15 Section 104

March 24, 2019

Be Healthy, Not Hurtful

Nicole Avena and Mark Gold, the authors of “Food and Addiction – Sugars, Fats, and

Hedonic Eating” argue that food addiction should be recognized as another major cause of the

“deadly” obesity epidemic. Their evidence focuses on hedonic foods, in a more literal sense,

hyperpalatable foods, which they state are the types of foods that can lead to addictive properties.

I have many issues with the argument; however, I want to start with acknowledging that I agree

with the idea that unhealthy foods can be taken to the point of obsession. Food addiction is a

very real thing; it has physical and mental effects on a person. As someone who once had a food

addiction, it can be a replacement for a proper coping mechanism when it comes to personal

problems and that is unhealthy. Now, it is very important in developing this argument to state

that while the media presents obesity as a deadly issue of upmost importance, it is being

exaggerated, partly because of issues of fatphobia. Fatphobia is informally defined as a dislike

and disgust of people who are deemed fat. The dangers of Fatphobia are a recent issue, but due to

false press and little media representation, fat people are still all defined in one way. While

cultivating this argument, I will discuss and debunk the obesity crisis myth, explain how fat does

not equal unhealthy and should not be scrutinized to the degree that it is, show that Avena and

Gold inaccurately defined hyperpalatable foods in their attempt to demean sugars, and highlight

that having a diverse palette including all food is physically and mentally better for people.
 So, my opponents’ exigence for writing their theory on food addiction is to point out its

connection to Obesity, as can be seen when they refer to obesity as an “epidemic” (Avena and

Gold 1214-1215). One of the biggest arguments against obesity, besides, it being deemed

aesthetically displeasing, is the idea that obesity leads to diseases that cause death. I halfway

agree that Obesity can have damaging health effects. However, the same can be said for extreme

thinness (anorexia). One of these damaging conditions is seen with compassion and sympathy,

the other is seen with contempt and scorn. While anorexia is just as deadly, because of fatphobia,

Obesity has been considered as a big a ‘crisis’ as it is. Many researchers have focused much of

their work on proving that fat leads to a quicker death. Take for example, S. Jay Olshansky, a

professor of epidemiology at the University of Illinois-Chicago, produced a journal article in

response to Katherine Flegal, an epidemiologist at the CDC’s National Center for Health

Statistics (Brown). Flegal created a study on the link between BMI, or Body Mass Index,

statistics and its connection to death (Brown). Flegal had talked about how in the case of BMI,

people in the overweight category had the greatest life expectancy, and people in the mildly

obese category showed expectancy rates that were equal to those of ‘normal’ category weight

(Brown). Olshansky responded by saying that as the obesity ‘epidemic’ grew, it would shorten

the lives of the affected population up to 5 years (Brown). Now, although Olshansky’s research

was debunked, people still believe in his statistic. This fits into the idea that people already have

pre-existing biases, much like Avena and Gold, toward fat people and would use any argument,

even if it were illogical, to justify these feelings. This type of thinking is not looking out for how

extremely low or high weight can be harmful, but on condemning fat people on their “lifestyle.”

I know that many have been swayed by studies that, while incorrect, are highly

influential. There are still many dangers when it comes to extreme obesity. The issue is that all
types of fat from being slightly overweight to mildly obese are being demonized because of

inaccuracies. With Katherine Flegal and her BMI report, although it defends the argument that

obesity is not a major risk for death, it still relies on the BMI system which has been proven to be

highly inaccurate. Researchers from Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania

cited in a Medical News Today article had pointed out that BMI is highly inaccurate because it

“… does not take into account muscle mass, bone density, overall body composition, and racial

and sex differences” (qtd. in Nordqvist). Throughout the article, it is pointed out that although

BMI basically states that obesity is bad and being in the ‘normal’ category of BMI is good, there

are studies that show that Obesity can have upsides, for example preventing death and having a

better metabolic health, while people in the normal category of BMI can be the opposite of that

(Nordqvist). I believe that Avena and Gold’s argument would be strengthened if they included

these ideas. We can agree that Obesity has negative effects, but it must state that it also has

positive effects.

Much of the data for Obesity is skewed, especially toward treating people who are obese

as unhealthy when that is not always the case. In fact, if we looked at it from a completely

unbiased standpoint, we would not be able to come to a proper conclusion because of all the false

data and biased studies. However, many Americans believe in this idea of the obesity crisis

which leads to diet culture. This culture is surrounded by fad diets that promise to rid of fat

quickly. However, this is far from the truth and instead leads to dangerous health issues. In 2013,

over 60 billion dollars was pushed into the fad diet industry, the money going to companies such

as Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig and diets like Keto and the baby food diet, and the number

continues to grow (Brown). Still, dieting does not make people thinner and there is only a 5%

chance of people losing the significant amount of weight that they want to lose and keeping that
weight off for a long period of time without gaining it back (Brown). Instead, what they earn is

physical and psychological problems. This is all to point out that because of this idea of a false

crisis, Americans are wasting money and risking physical and mental issues all for an idea of

fitness that may never be achieved. These biases make it hard to make a believable argument.

Again, there is merit in the discussion of the dangers of the obesity, but not without

acknowledging strong biases that create false solutions.

One irresponsible argument leads to another and this is most evident with Avena and

Gold’s main argument, which was surrounded by the idea of hyperpalatable foods and how these

foods can lead to food addiction and later to obesity (Nicole M. Avena and Mark S. Gold, 1214-

1215). Hyperpalatable foods are known as foods that “contain certain combinations of sugar, fat,

salt, and carbohydrates which tap into the brain's reward system and make it hard for us to stop

eating them” (qtd. in Gander). Part of their argument is focused on how sugar is the main

hyperpalatable food that causes this process of food addiction and it is especially evident when

examining all the studies they quote from. One piece of their evidence around hyperpalatable

food revealed that, “…preclinical studies suggest that overeating sugar produces different

addiction‐like behaviors compared with overeating fat” (Avena and Gold 1214-1215). The issue

with this argument though, is that they tend to focus on hyperpalatable foods as mainly sugars.

Sugars as the only hyperpalatable food ignores the other types of food like fast food that have

more evidence of addicted properties than sugars. I agree that hyperpalatable foods are

dangerous and are being fueled by large corporations into the American diet to make money of

the people’s health. Sugar, though, gets a negative reputation even though there have not been

many links between sugar, weight gain, or even dangerous diseases like diabetes.
 A report on sugar done by doctors Richard Kahn and John Sievenpiper states, “….

Although calories from sugar (sucrose, fructose, or HFCS in any form—solid or liquid) have

been shown to increase weight in a hypercaloric diet and decrease weight in a hypocaloric diet,

when consumption is corrected for energy intake, sugar has no effect on body weight. Finally,

there is no direct evidence that sugar itself, in liquid or solid form, causes an increase in appetite,

decreases satiety, or causes diabetes.” The study describes how many people demean sugar

without any real evidence and do not take in factors such as how much energy someone expends

and the type of diet they are on when discussing the dangers of sugars. Throughout the report,

multiple random controlled trials (RCTs) (Kahn and Sievenpiper) were cited to find the link

between sugar, weight gain, and diabetes. The summary that each of these RCTs showed is that

sugar barely had any affect when it comes to weight gain and that the only real connection came

in the way that sugar affected energy consumption. With less sugar intake, came less energy

consumption. This shows that there is a connection between weight gain, diabetes, and the way

we spend energy in comparison to our diet, rather than just sugar. In all, sugar had the same

effect as any caloric food when it came to weight gain and losing it would not create such a big

effect (Kahn and Sievenpiper). Avena and Gold advocate for the release of sugar from people’s

diets, and that is not a harmful argument unlike previous ones they have made. Sugar is not

entirely important. If you were to lose a certain food group, sugar would be okay to lose because

it has no nutritional value (Kahn and Sievenpiper). However, there is more to be said about the

way foods are demonized and how that affects our diets.

A very noticeable trend in the past few years has seen much of the blame for the obesity

crisis being put on the overconsumption of sugar. Kahn and Sievenpiper talked about how a lot

of the condemnation sugar is due to a study that showed the relationship between sugar and
obesity. However, around the early 2000s, sugar consumption had died down, but not obesity

(Kahn and Sievenpiper). Since most people looked at the graph one-sidedly, the idea that sugar is

the main cause for weight gain had stayed. Weight gain, and in part diseases associated with

weight gain, has continued to be a consistent stereotype on sugar, even though it is not to blame.

I do agree with Avena and Gold in that hyperpalatable foods have addictive properties. These

types of food are made to taste good and when eaten tap into our reward centers and cause us to

consistently try to recreate those rewards. However, I have a problem when it comes to the

condemnation of hyperpalatable foods as only sugars. Studies show that 62% of foods sold in

America are hyperpalatable (qtd. in Gander). We should be focusing blame and questioning on

corporations and their selling of foods that do not meet up to a healthy standard, but instead

rhetoric’s of blaming are on the people and on scapegoated products such as sugars. This causes

people to completely cut out certain foods, leading to the unhealthy diet practice of food

restriction.

Everyone thinks they know the importance of healthy eating. We all know the importance

of eating fruits and vegetables and eating from different food groups such as lean meats and

dairy. But, as discussed in the article “No, Your Child Is Not Addicted to Sugar,” we live in a

“clean eating obsessed culture” (Schilling). Clean eating is the idea that all we really need in our

diet is fruits and vegetables, which erases important parts of the food groups like carbs, and yes,

even sugars. I went into my argument believing Avena and Gold when it came to the dangers of

food addiction, and I still do, as someone who has suffered through it. However, Leslie Schilling,

author of “No, Your Child Is Not Addicted to Sugar,” interviewed Evelyn Tribole, author and

eating disorder specialist, who highlighted that Food Addiction is a “problematic theory” and

that it is not scientific. My opponents, Avena and Gold in their argument about food addiction,
use evidence of rats who, after being addicted to sugar, show similar addiction signs as those

addicted to drugs, and issues with the reward centers in the brain. Schilling and Tribole

acknowledge studies like that and point out that these studies oversimplify the reward centers in

the brain and that this line of reasoning could be used to connect addiction to other things

affected by that center of the brain, like music and laughter. Still, this does not erase the idea that

food addiction is dangerous, but rather that addiction can come in all forms. Although these

addictions do not seem worthy of medical attention, it is still up to us to determine when an

addiction has dangerous physical and mental effects on our bodies. Schilling’s solution to the

problem of food addiction are nevertheless worth merit. Throughout the article, there is a call for

the end of restricted dieting habits because this leads to more binge-eating (Schilling). To

simplify it, the more someone cannot have something, the more they want it. When people are

giving the option to eat all types of foods, even the ones deemed “too unhealthy” by biased

principles, it gives them the ability to explore what is good for their bodies. Practicing showing

foods like sugar in a neutral way, rather than a positive or negative, have been shown to help kids

eat less of it (Schilling).

In the end, there is a lot to be said on the matter of weight and health in America.

However, all the discussion focuses on the “dangers of obesity,” shaming people and sugars for

the “crisis,” and focusing all our attention on unhealthy diets. The arguments are all so one-sided.

There is a conversation to be had on the effects of body weight and health for both very thin and

very fat people. There is a conversation to be had about how too often people are blamed for the

body and food crisis, when a lot of times billion-dollar corporations are making hyperpalatable

foods more available to the public instead of the wide variety of foods we need. This

conversation on obesity needs to be further studied and expanded in on, because the way we are
acknowledging it will not fix the issue. While this is a systemic problem, on an individual level,

each of us need to trust ourselves to eat and explore and experiment to figure out what is right for

us, because food restriction much like food addiction, creates bad mental habits that affect the

one thing that we can all agree is most precious: our bodies.
 Work Cited

Avena, Nicole and Mark S. Gold. “Food and Addiction-Sugars, Fats, and Hedonic Eating.”

Addiction, vol. 106, no. 7, 03 June. 2011. pp. 1214-1215, https://doi-

org.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/10.1111/j.1360-0443.2011.03373.x

Brown, Harriet. “The Obesity 'Crisis' Is a Myth.” New York Post, New York Post, 23 Mar. 2015,

nypost.com/2015/03/22/why-dieting-doesnt-work/.

Gander, Kashmira. “Most Food in America Is Hyper-Palatable and ‘Difficult to Stop Eating,’

Scientists Say.” Newsweek, Newsweek, 6 Nov. 2019, www.newsweek.com/hyper-

palatable-food-obesity-fat-sugar-carbohydrates-sodium-1469528.

Kahn, Richard and John L. Sievenpiper. “Dietary Sugar and Body Weight: Have We Reached a

Crisis in the Epidemic of Obesity and Diabetes? We Have, but the Pox on Sugar Is

Overwrought and Overworked.” Diabetes Care, vol. 37, no. 4, 24 Apr. 2014. pp. 957-962

https://doi.org/10.2337/dc13-2506

Nordqvist, Christian. “Why BMI Is Inaccurate and Misleading.” Medical News Today,

MediLexicon International, 25 Aug. 2013, www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/265215.

Schilling, Leslie. “No, Your Child Is Not Addicted to Sugar.” U.S. News & World Report, U.S.

News & World Report, 13 Feb. 2020, health.usnews.com/wellness/for-

parents/articles/your-child-does-not-have-a-sugar-addiction.