Tim Worstall, if a PhD economist has pleasurable dreams about winning the lottery, that is exactly what I would call “failing to understand probability on a gut level”
In that case, wouldn’t you say that anyone who suffers from akrasia (which is pretty much everyone at some time) has a failure of understanding on a gut level? My subconscious mind doesn’t seem to understand that it’s a bad idea to eat a box of pizza every night; so I have to rely on my conscious mind to take charge, or at least try to.
Occasionally even health-conscious people eat stuff like pizza, which is arguably the equivalent of buying the occasional lottery ticket. In each case, the conscious mind is aware that one is doing something counter-productive. In the case of a lottery ticket, one is enjoying the fantasy of being free from his day-to-day financial worries,even though there is essentially zero chance of actually succeeding. In the case of pigging out, one is enjoying the feeling of being stuffed with tasty food, even though there is essentially zero chance that there will be a food shortage next week which will justify his having pigged out.
Occasionally even health-conscious people eat stuff like pizza, which is arguably the equivalent of buying the occasional lottery ticket.
Bad analogy. Eating pizza (or any other high-energy food that you happen to like) is intrinsically rewarding. You don’t do it all the time because you trade off this reward with other rewards (e.g. not being fat and hence ugly and unhealthy). Buying a lottery ticket is not intrinsically rewarding if you don’t win, which happens with a negligible probability. Well, buying a lottery ticket may be intrinsically rewarding if you suffer from gambling addiction, which means that you’ve screwed your reward system and by gambling you are doing a sort of wireheading. That’s pretty much like doing drugs. At the level of conscious preferences, you don’t want to do that.
Bad analogy. Eating pizza (or any other high-energy food that you happen to like) is intrinsically rewarding.
I don’t know about you, but when I buy a lottery ticket, I usually end up having a few nice daydreams about hitting the $400 million jackpot or whatever. So I would say that for me (and probably many other people), it’s intrinsically rewarding.
Well, buying a lottery ticket may be intrinsically rewarding if you suffer from gambling addiction,
FWIW I’m not a gambling addict.
by gambling you are doing a sort of wireheading. That’s pretty much like doing drugs.
Agree, that’s pretty much the point. Of course some forms of wireheading are so dangerous that even occasional indulgence is a bad idea, for example heroin and cocaine. Other forms are less dangerous so that occasional indulgence is safe for most people.
I don’t know about you, but when I buy a lottery ticket, I usually end up having a few nice daydreams about hitting the $400 million jackpot or whatever.
I don’t know, I’ve never bought lottery tickets, I may only gamble token amounts of money at events where it is socially expected to do so.
So I would say that for me (and probably many other people), it’s intrinsically rewarding.
Maybe I’m wired differently than most people, but what do you find rewarding about it? We are not talking of something like tasty food or sex, which your ancestors brains were evolutionary adapted to seek since the time they were lizards, gambling opportunities did not exist in the environment of evolutionary adaptedness, you need some high-level cognitive processes to tell a lottery ticket from any random piece of paper.
It’s true that people have difficulties reasoning informally about low-probablity high-payoff (or high-cost) events, which explains why gambling is so popular, but gambling is also one of the few high-uncertainty scenarios where we can apply formal methods to obtain precise expected (monetary) value estimations. Once you do the math, you know it’s not worth the cost.
But obviously you knew that already, so my question is, how can you still daydream about winning the lottery without experiencing cognitive dissonance?
Maybe I’m wired differently than most people, but what do you find rewarding about it?
As mentioned above, the pleasant daydream of hitting the big jackpot.
gambling opportunities did not exist in the environment of evolutionary adaptedness
I disagree; for example one can easily envision a hypothetical caveman deciding whether to hunt for a big animal which may or may not be in the next valley.
how can you still daydream about winning the lottery without experiencing cognitive dissonance?
I don’t know. But I can tell you that it’s a pleasant feeling. Let me ask you this: Do you ever daydream or fantasize about things which (1) you wish would happen; and (2) are extremely unlikely to happen?
I disagree; for example one can easily envision a hypothetical caveman deciding whether to hunt for a big animal which may or may not be in the next valley.
Sure. But would this hypothetical caveman still decide to hunt if he was pretty much certain that the animal was not there?
Do you ever daydream or fantasize about things which (1) you wish would happen; and (2) are extremely unlikely to happen?
Uh, sexual fantasies aside (which I can blame my “reptile brain” for), I don’t think so.
But would this hypothetical caveman still decide to hunt if he was pretty much certain that the animal was not there?
I’m not sure, it would probably depend on his assessment of the costs, benefits, and risks involved. In any event, I don’t see the point of your question. You asserted that gambling opportunities did not exist in the ancestral environment; that’s not so.
Uh, sexual fantasies aside (which I can blame my “reptile brain” for), I don’t think so.
I think you are pretty unusual; my impression is that most people daydream as far as I know.
But let me ask you this: Do you agree that there a decent number of people like me who are not gambling addicts but still occasionally buy lottery tickets? If you agree, then what do you think is the motivation?
I’m not sure, it would probably depend on his assessment of the costs, benefits, and risks involved. In any event, I don’t see the point of your question. You asserted that gambling opportunities did not exist in the ancestral environment; that’s not so.
That’s just decision making under uncertainty. I was talking about proper gambling, such as buying lottery tickets. My point is that you need some high-level (“System 2”) processing to associate the action of buying a ticket to the scenario of winning vast riches, since these are not the sort of things that existed in the ancestral environment. But if you understand probability, then your System 2 should not make that association.
Given army1987′s comment I suppose it is possible to get that association from social conditioning before you understand probability.
I think you are pretty unusual; my impression is that most people daydream as far as I know.
On further reflection I think I overstated my claim. I do speculate/daydream about fictional scenarios, and I find it rewarding (I used to that more often as a child, but I still do it).
Therefore I suppose it is possible to counterfactually pretend to having won the lottery using suspension of disbelief in the same way as when enjoing or creatiing a work of fiction. But in this case, you don’t actually need to buy a ticket, you can just pretend to have bought one!
But let me ask you this: Do you agree that there a decent number of people like me who are not gambling addicts but still occasionally buy lottery tickets?
Yes.
If you agree, then what do you think is the motivation?
Habit created by social conditioning looks like a plausible answer.
That’s just decision making under uncertainty. I was talking about proper gambling, such as buying lottery tickets.
I still have no idea what your point was. “proper junk food” didn’t exist in the ancestral environment; “proper pornography” did not exist in the ancestral environment either. So what?
My point is that you need some high-level (“System 2”) processing to associate the action of buying a ticket to the scenario of winning vast riches
Do you need System 2 processing to associate an erotic story with sexual release? To associate the words “Coca Cola” with a nice sweet taste?
I do speculate/daydream about fictional scenarios, and I find it rewarding (I used to that more often as a child, but I still do it). Therefore I suppose it is possible to counterfactually pretend to having won the lottery using suspension of disbelief in the same way as when enjoing or creatiing a work of fiction. But in this case, you don’t actually need to buy a ticket, you can just pretend to have bought one!
Well when you were a child, did you play with toys, for example toy trucks ? And was the play more enjoyable if it were a somewhat realistic toy truck as opposed to, say, a block of wood?
Habit created by social conditioning looks like a plausible answer.
It’s not very plausible to me. For example, if it were credibly announced that all of the winning tickets for a particular drawing had already been sold, I doubt that occasional lottery players would buy tickets for that drawing.
My point is that you need some high-level (“System 2”) processing … since these are not the sort of things that existed in the ancestral environment.
You either are using “System 2” with a narrower meaning than standard or are making a factually incorrect assumption. (There were no cars in the ancestral environment, and some people have driven cars while sleepwalking.)
I used to daydream a lot, in particular of winning the lottery, when I was a child, but I’m pretty sure it’s something I was taught to do by family, teachers and mass media. (The first lottery with really big jackpots in my country had just been introduced, and everybody was talking about what they would do with all that money.)
We are not talking of something like tasty food or sex, which your ancestors brains were evolutionary adapted to seek since the time they were lizards, gambling opportunities did not exist in the environment of evolutionary adaptedness, you need some high-level cognitive processes to tell a lottery ticket from any random piece of paper.
It’s not like everything is either evolved or relies on cold emotionless System 2 only. I mean, it’s easy for people to get hooked on TVTropes, but it’s not like it fulfils any obvious ancestral desire.
Eating pizza (or any other high-energy food that you happen to like) is intrinsically rewarding.
For what value of ‘intrinsically’? It sure isn’t rewarding for a paperclip maximizer, and IIUC you seem to be implying that doing drugs isn’t intrinsically rewarding for non-addicted people.
Do I have to specify that I was talking about humans?
IIUC you seem to be implying that doing drugs isn’t intrinsically rewarding for non-addicted people.
Non-addicted people generally understand that addictive drugs like heroin or cocaine can give them short-term rewards but potentially hamper the satisfaction of their long-term preferences, hence they assign a negative expected utility to them. On the other hand, eating pizza in moderate amounts is consistent with the satisfaction of long-term preferences.
I’m not quite sure about this; there are certainly humans who find pizza inedible for cultural reasons. I suppose you could argue that the composition of pizza is such that it would appeal to a hypothetical “unbiased” human, but that might still be problematic.
(I was going to say ‘then so is alcohol’ (specifically, the feeling of being tipsy), then I remembered of this claim and realized I was probably about to commit the typical mind fallacy.)
And why is that a problem? You seem to be implying that a low-carb diet is The Only True Way which looks doubtful.
Because of the negative effects it has on your insulin response, leading to pancreas fatigue and type 2 diabetes.
The claim was about “health-conscious” people, not body-image-conscious.
I was under the impression that a low body fat percentage was healthier. Perhaps I’m wrong. I must admit my beliefs are influenced by aesthetics. I’d bet on low abdominal fat been the optimal via a low-ish carb diet.
We know that low-carb is effective at losing weight. The jury is still out on whether low-carb is healthy in the long term.
Similarly, while it is clear that being obese is unhealthy, I don’t think that there is any evidence to show that being very thin (having low body fat %) is healthier than being normal.
Yes, and it does show the expected U-shaped curve.
That was the point. (I also incorrectly remembered that the minimum was shifted a bit to the right of what’s usually called “normal weight”, i.e. 18.5 to 25, but in the case of healthy people who’ve never smoked it looks like that range is about right.)
I guess it depends on whether you eat it for dinner, or as a snack in addition to whatever else you’d normally have for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I suspect he’s thinking of the latter.
(Likewise, I guess that so long as you’re not lactose-intolerant a large cone of ice cream isn’t particularly unhealthy as modern foods go, if it’s all you’re having for lunch.)
What’s wrong with healthy people (in particular, gluten-tolerant) eating pizza?
The main problem is that for a large percentage of people, pizza is a super-stimulus. i.e. it tastes far better that what was normally available in the ancestral environment so that it’s difficult to avoid over-consuming it. Of course the health dangers of over-consumption of food are well known.
If you think pizza is a bad example, feel free to substitute candy bars or coca-cola.
The main problem is that for a large percentage of people, pizza is a super-stimulus. i.e. it tastes far better that what was normally available in the ancestral environment so that it’s difficult to avoid over-consuming it.
I like to know how you’d justify this claim. Remember that pizza has been available in the United States since the beginning of the 20th century and has been popular since at least the 1950′s, yet the obesity epidemic has ony happened relatively recently.
I like to know how you’d justify this claim. Remember that pizza has been available in the United States since the beginning of the 20th century and has been popular since at least the 1950′s, yet the obesity epidemic has ony happened relatively recently.
Also, potato chips were invented in the 19th century; ice cream has been around for ages; ditto for french fries. Of course, obesity has also been growing as a problem over the years too.
I think what’s changed is that these types of foods have become much more easily available in terms of cost, convenience, and marketing.
I don’t think cost has changed much. Reportedly, in the 1950′s a burger cost 15 cents (about $1.3 in today’s money) and a slice of pizza cost 25 cents (about $2.2 in today’s money). Convenience might have changed but not by a lot, and that may just be because people now just go out for food more often than making it at home.
Just based on my general observations, I would have to disagree. Just walking down the street in New York, there are lots of places where you can get a large slice of pizza for $1.00. That’s about 8 minutes of work at the minimum wage. Back in 1985, I remember the minimum wage was $3.35 per hour, so 8 minutes of work would have been about 45 cents. I don’t recall ever seeing a large slice of pizza for 45 cents back in the 80s.
Also, during the 80s, I remember spending about $5.00 for a typical deli lunch consisting of a turkey sandwich and a can of soda. Twenty-five years later, it costs about $6.00 and there are still places where you can get it for $5.00. Or less.
It also occurs to me that portion sizes have perhaps increased. If you a Google image search for “portion” “sizes” “over” “time,” you get all kinds of charts making this claim. I wasn’t around in the 1950s, but it does seem that, at a minimum, soda sizes have increased. I vaguely remember that it was common to get a 10 ounce bottle of soda 30 or 40 years ago. I haven’t seen a 10 ounce bottle in years; it seems that 16 ounces is the standard single serving bottle size and 20 ounces is pretty common too.
Hamburgers have expanded by 23 percent; A plate of Mexican food is 27 percent bigger; Soft drinks have increased in size by 52 percent; Snacks, whether they be potato chips, pretzels or crackers, are 60 percent larger.
So if you look at things in terms of dollars per calorie, the decline in the price of prepared foods may very well be even more dramatic than it seems on the surface.
What do you mean by that exactly? How many burgers could the median worker in 1950 buy with their hourly wage, and how many can the median worker today buy with theirs?
That’s a very very complex (and controversial!) topic because ‘median worker’ or ‘median household’ is not well-defined. Many households during that era were single-income (not nearly as many as popular opinion would suggest, but still far more than today). There’s also the fact that there were more married couples and more children than today. You also have to consider that food hasn’t made up the bulk of household expenditures during modern times. Today food accounts for 10-15% of the average family’s living expenses, and from the limited information I was able to find, it was about 30% in 1950.
Except that, empirically speaking, there are lots and lots of people who actually can and do consume candy bars, soda pop, or pizza in moderation.
Which makes me wonder about the actual mind-mechanisms behind “superstimulus”, since we seem to be so very good at learning to deal with it.
(Yes, I do have a hypothesis regarding obesity epidemics that’s more complex than “Everyone in whole countries is getting caught in a superstimulus feedback loop with their eating habits.”)
Except that, empirically speaking, there are lots and lots of people who actually can and do consume candy bars, soda pop, or pizza in moderation.
Which makes me wonder about the actual mind-mechanisms behind “superstimulus”, since we seem to be so very good at learning to deal with it.
It strikes me as an overstatement to say that “we” seem to be very good at dealing with it. In most Western countries, the rates of overweight and obesity are quite high and/or rising. Surely a large majority of those people are failing to eat some kinds of food in moderation. And I doubt those people are overconsuming fresh vegetables and oatmeal.
Anyway, do you agree that there is a problem with a decent percentage of people overconsuming foods which tend to be far richer in calories/salt/fat/sugar/etc. than what was typically available in the ancestral environment? And if you agree, what do you think is the cause of the problem?
Anyway, do you agree that there is a problem with a decent percentage of people overconsuming foods which tend to be far richer in calories/salt/fat/sugar/etc. than what was typically available in the ancestral environment?
I think that “decent percentage” is imprecise, but there’s definitely something going on that’s making people fatter.
It could be bad habits. It could be superstimulus effects (though I’m suspicious regarding the lack of professional literature on a concept that primarily seems to be LessWrongian rather than empirically studied). It could be food additives.
I don’t know yet; I need to see some actual studies to make a judgement.
It could be bad habits. It could be superstimulus effects (though I’m suspicious regarding the lack of professional literature on a concept that primarily seems to be LessWrongian rather than empirically studied). It could be food additives.
Putting aside the “why” question, do you agree that if you look at people who are overweight or obese, their overconsumption problems tend to focus on certain types of foods, which tend to be very high in calories?
Overconsumption means “high in calories” almost (if not quite) by definition. Someone who eats raw cabbage nonstop simply isn’t going to get to overconsumption levels.
Overconsumption means “high in calories” almost (if not quite) by definition. Someone who eats raw cabbage nonstop simply isn’t going to get to overconsumption levels.
So that means your answer is “yes”?
Also, it sounds like you are saying that among people who have difficulty resisting the urge to eat, there is no particular preference for foods like ice cream, french fries and cookies over foods like cabbage, tomatoes, and broccoli, it’s just that the former foods are more likely to cause obesity because they are higher in calories.
I’m saying that I don’t know of particular preferences within the set of high-calorie foods. There is also the problem of consuming mid-calorie foods like bread or pasta (which humans did for millenia without getting too damn fat until about the 1990s) in completely excessive amounts, for instance.
So basically, I don’t think you can yell “COOKIES ARE SUPERSTIMULUS, REDUCE COOKIE PRODUCTION NOW!” when in fact lots of fat people are consuming massive amounts of pasta while plenty of thin people consume small amounts of cookies. The picture is much more complicated than simply assuming some arbitrarily constructed reference class of “things not in the ancestral environment” (besides, ancestral hunter-gatherers often got plenty more calories than ancestral peasant farmers, despite coming earlier: which one is our “ancestral environment” here?), which we choose to label as “superstimulus” (does that term have a scientific grounding?), will automatically short-circuit people’s decision making.
besides, ancestral hunter-gatherers often got plenty more calories than ancestral peasant farmers, despite coming earlier: which one is our “ancestral environment” here?
This bears repeating. Also keep in mind, many people with western European ancestry have a much higher threshold for diabetes, due to that ancestry’s post-agricultural dietary habits. After several thousand years, agriculture becomes part of the evolutionary environment.
(In the long view, I often stop and ponder whose ancestral environment and population we are, and how the cultural and environmental choices we’re making today will shape the genetic predispositions of our 61st century descendants.)
(In the long view, I often stop and ponder whose ancestral environment and population we are, and how the cultural and environmental choices we’re making today will shape the genetic predispositions of our 61st century descendants.)
Maybe our 61st century descendants will have genes, but if we haven’t managed to beat the crap out of evolution and impose our own life-optimization criteria by the year 6000, I will be extremely disappointed.
which humans did for millenia without getting too damn fat until about the 1990s
That’s the really mysterious bit to me.
I don’t think excessive quantities are likely to be the problem, though. I read a caloric breakdown once of the lifestyle of a 10th-century Scandinavian farmer; the energy requirements turn out to be absurd by modern standards, something like six thousand kcal just to stay upright at the end of the day in peak season. (Winter life was a bit more sedentary, but still strenuous by modern standards.) If you’re consuming that much food regularly, an extra five hundred kcal here or there is a rounding error; it’s implausible that everyone back then just happened to manage their consumption to within a few percent. Nor was the civilization as a whole calorie-bound, as best we can tell. But judging from skeletal evidence, they didn’t suffer from many of the diseases of civilization that we do.
The obvious diff here is exertion, but the nutritional literature I’ve read tends to downplay its role. Or you could blame portion sizes relative to exertion, but larger portions are only fattening because of the excess calories, which brings us back to the original mystery. So either some novel aspect of the post-1900 diet is making modern Westerners fat, or the archaeology or the nutritional science is wrong, or I’m missing a step. And I don’t think I’m missing a step.
If I had to venture a guess, I might blame lots of simple sugars in the modern diet—honey was the only sweetener available for most of human history, and it was rare and expensive. But that’s extremely tentative and feels a little glib.
This article contains links to several peer-reviewed research studies on the matter.
[e]xamined samples collectively consisting of over 20,000 animals from 24 populations of animals representing eight species living with or around humans in industrialized societies. In all populations, the estimated coefficient for the trend of body weight over time was positive (i.e. increasing). Surprisingly, we find that over the past several decades, average mid-life body weights have risen among primates and rodents living in research colonies, as well as among feral rodents and domestic dogs and cats.
I’m saying that I don’t know of particular preferences within the set of high-calorie foods.
That doesn’t seem to contradict my point. It sounds like you do agree with me that there are certain foods or types of foods which (generally speaking) tend to be difficult for obese people to resist eating.
Once again, no. Please attempt to understand my view here instead of trying to force your own. I do not necessarily believe, in the absence of evidence, that the obesity epidemic arises from certain foods (tasty, unhealthy, or otherwise) drugging people into addiction just by being more intense than prehistoric foods.
No, food is not in and of itself a drug that can magically alter our decision-making apparatus in some way that doesn’t wash out when placed next to the other elements of individual lifestyle.
Some foods may contain drugs. Chocolate, for instance, contains theobromide, a mild stimulant and euphoric I find quite enjoyable. Beer contains alcohol, a fairly strong depressant. Some cheeses are said to contain opiates, which supposedly explain the “addictive” quality of cheeseburgers (though studies don’t seem to indicate very much evidence beyond that expected of motivated reasoners). Yet nobody eats or drinks chocolate-laced beer with cheese in it.
I think that attempting to talk about the obesity epidemic as a failure of rationality due to superstimulus in foods is an attempt to kick a sloppy variable and turn it into a stiff one. I think we need a competing alternate hypothesis.
For one thing, it’s not as if healthy foods are all dull! A simple chopped-vegetable salad made with fresh ingredients is tasty and healthy, for instance. (Of course, this assumes you live somewhere in which fresh, nutritious veggies are affordable in bulk.… hmm, another contributing factor to the obesity problem?)
Once again, no. Please attempt to understand my view here instead of trying to force your own.
I am trying to understand your view, and you are not helping things by evading my questions. The question I asked you said nothing about the obesity epidemic or the causes of obesity. You read that into the question yourself.
I will try one last time: Put aside the causes of obesity and the obesity epidemic.
I’m simply asking if you agree with me that for obese people, there tend to be certain foods or types of foods which are difficult to resist eating. It’s an extremely simple yes or no question.
I’m simply asking if you agree with me that for obese people, there tend to be certain foods or types of foods which are difficult to resist eating. It’s an extremely simple yes or no question.
And, to the best of my knowledge, the answer is no. Obese people don’t have a hard time not-eating some foods, they have a hard time not eating in general.
And, to the best of my knowledge, the answer is no. Obese people don’t have a hard time not-eating some foods, they have a hard time not eating in general.
Food cravings are extremely common, particularly among women. Cravings are frequently reported for specific types of foods, including chocolate and foods high in both sugar and fat
One cannot discuss cravings, sugar and fat without discussing the role of chocolate. Chocolate is the most frequently craved food in North America
By the way, is it a surprise to you that chocolate holds the spot as the most craved food as opposed to, say, raw cauliflower?
Here’s another big surprise for you:
Women in particular report extreme liking of or craving for foods that are both sweet and high in fat (e.g., candies, cakes or pastries, ice cream)
By the way, is it a surprise to you that chocolate holds the spot as the most craved food as opposed to, say, raw cauliflower?
Since chocolate contains a stimulant/euphoric drug, no, this is not surprising, and I even mentioned it.
What would be surprising is if we could see a correlation between obesity and cravings for specific non-chocolate items, or even some way of showing that people who don’t eat chocolate are massively less likely to be obese.
Since chocolate contains a stimulant/euphoric drug, no, this is not surprising
So are you conceding that at least chocolate is a specific food or type of food which many obese people tend to have difficulty resisting?
And what of the claim that “Women in particular report extreme liking of or craving for foods that are both sweet and high in fat (e.g., candies, cakes or pastries, ice cream)”
No, I’m saying that people have some difficulty resisting chocolate. That includes thin people.
And “people” includes “obese people,” agreed?
Also, please answer my other question:
Do you dispute the claim that “Women in particular report extreme liking of or craving for foods that are both sweet and high in fat (e.g., candies, cakes or pastries, ice cream)”?
Are we trying to find things out anymore, or are you just trying to hammer home “HA! OBESITY IS CAUSED BY SUPERSTIMULUS! THERE’S SOME MINOR EVIDENCE OF THINGS THAT SOUND KINDA LIKE SUPERSTIMULUS BEING SUBJECT TO CRAVINGS! TAKE THIS, YOU IGNORAMUS!”?
Yes, I am trying to nail down your position so that I can figure out exactly where we disagree.
You keep trying to change the subject to the causes of obesity. Which is an important question but not the question I have been addressing.
The threshold question is whether there are certain foods or types of foods which are particularly difficult to resist.
If we agreed on that, then we could go on to discuss why such foods or types of foods are difficult to resist—is it because they are super-stimulus foods or some other reason? We could also discuss the role such foods play in obesity at an individual or societal level. But those are different questions.
You seem to have denied that there exist certain foods or types of foods which are difficult to resist. However, you seem to have made an exception for chocolate.
I have presented evidence that there are other foods which are difficult to resist “foods that are both sweet and high in fat (e.g., candies, cakes or pastries, ice cream)”—at least for women.
You refuse to tell me if you dispute this evidence. Why are you playing hide the ball with your position?
Trust me, the sky won’t fall if you simply admit that you were wrong.
Do you dispute the claim that “Women in particular report extreme liking of or craving for foods that are both sweet and high in fat (e.g., candies, cakes or pastries, ice cream)”? (And if not, is it a surprise to you?) This is the last time I will ask.
If we agreed on that, then we could go on to discuss why such foods or types of foods are difficult to resist—is it because they are super-stimulus foods or some other reason? We could also discuss the role such foods play in obesity at an individual or societal level. But those are different questions.
Ok, I’ve spotted the issue. I thought you were linking the two things: “These foods are hard to resist because they are superstimuli. Here, let me prove there are foods that are ‘hard to resist’ (whatever that means). Now that I’ve done so, it must be because they are superstimuli.”
My problems with this are: you need to separate the experience of cravings in absence of food (ie: I can crave chocolate but not have chocolate) from the actual “difficulty to resist” (that needs definition) when the food item is in front of you. You then also need to define “superstimulus” such that the definition makes predictions, and justify belief in such a concept via showing that it applies to your examples of craved foods.
You seem to have denied that there exist certain foods or types of foods which are difficult to resist. However, you seem to have made an exception for chocolate.
I’ve made an “exception” for actual drugs, as separate from the other content of food.
To show what I mean, it should be plain that if I lace a pitcher of water with morphine, you will slowly develop an addiction to the water in my pitcher. This is not because water is difficult to resist, it’s because I drugged the water. The fact that theobromide or caffeine occur naturally doesn’t make the food “hard to resist”, it makes it contain a drug.
I have presented evidence that there are other foods which are difficult to resist “foods that are both sweet and high in fat (e.g., candies, cakes or pastries, ice cream)”—at least for women.
I don’t see a working definition of “difficult to resist”, is the issue. Lots of people get cravings and don’t act on them, so getting a craving is not evidence that these women actually display less power of self-control when confronted with, say, cake, versus a control group.
In the same fashion, lots of people might say, “I need a damn drink!” when they’re stressed-out, but the overwhelming majority of them don’t become alcoholics, and most don’t even actually take a drink!
Basically, you seem to my eyes to be failing to differentiate between “People like X” and “People can’t control themselves around X”.
To show what I mean, it should be plain that if I lace a pitcher of water with morphine, you will slowly develop an addiction to the water in my pitcher. This is not because water is difficult to resist, it’s because I drugged the water.
I don’t see a working definition of “difficult to resist”, is the issue.
It’s reasonable to believe that if people report “extreme liking of or craving,” for certain foods or types of foods, then a large percentage of people will find such foods difficult to resist. No reasonable person would dispute this without very strong evidence.
But anyway, we can’t even get to that point because you won’t even concede that people (or at least women) report “extreme liking of or craving” for certain foods or types of foods. I asked you three times if you you disputed this claim and you ignored my question each time.
Instead, you have decided to strawman me:
Basically, you seem to my eyes to be failing to differentiate between “People like X” and “People can’t control themselves around X”.
There’s a difference between “extreme liking or craving for X” and “liking X.” There is also a difference between “people have difficulty resisting X” and “people can’t control themselves around X.”
Sorry, but I have no interest in engaging with people who insist on playing hide the ball with their position. Nor do I engage with people who exaggerate my position to make it sound unreasonable.
There is also a difference between “people have difficulty resisting X” and “people can’t control themselves around X.”
So… what is it?
Sorry, but I have no interest in engaging with people who insist on playing hide the ball with their position.
Why do you think I have a definite position? My “position” here is that the vocabulary for hypotheses is ill-formed. We have effectively spent an entire conversation saying nothing at all because the terms were never defined clearly.
The main problem is that for a large percentage of people, pizza is a super-stimulus.
I don’t think this is true. Or, rather, if you think that pizza is a super-stimulus food, most food around is super-stimulus (with exceptions for things like stale cold porridge).
Super-stimulus foods are ether very sugary or very salty. Pizza is neither.
What pizza is, it’s a cheap easily-available high-calorie convenience food. That makes it easy to abuse (=overconsume), but doesn’t make it inherently unhealthy.
Super-stimulus foods are ether very sugary or very salty. Pizza is neither.
I don’t think this is at all accurate as a generalization. Insofar as any food can be said to qualify as a superstimulus, some of the best contenders are savory foods which are high in fats and starches, which in our ancestral environment would have been valuable sources of calories, calorie overabundance being far too rare a problem for us to be evolutionarily prepared against.
Peanut butter is a good example of a food which would have been an extreme outlier in terms of nutrient density in our ancestral environment (not for nothing is it the main ingredient in a therapeutic food to restore bodily health to people afflicted by famine) which is extremely moreish, despite not being especially high in either sugar or salt. Cheese is a similar case.
Peanut butter is a good example of a food which would have been an extreme outlier in terms of nutrient density in our ancestral environment
Not an outlier at all. Paleo hunter-gatherers certainly ate nuts. And meat (not the lean muscle meat, but the whole-animal meat including organs and fat) is probably higher in nutrient density.
Nuts would have been one of the richest sources of macronutrients by density in our ancestral environment, and they wouldn’t have been available in great quantity, which is probably in large part why they’re such an addictive food.
(My girlfriend has a nut allergy, and since I’ve started having to keep track of nut content in foods, I’ve noticed that the “snack” aisles in grocery stores can be divided, with fairly little remainder, into chips, pretzels, and nut-based foods.)
Liver is higher in micronutrients than nuts, or just about anything else for that matter, and I suspect that it avoids being a superstimulus to our senses because it would be one of the few food sources in our ancestral environment that it’s actually possible to get a nutrient overdose on (many species’ livers contain toxic concentrations of vitamins, not to mention the various toxins it’s filtered out of its host’s blood.) In terms of macronutrients, nuts have a higher calorie concentration than any animal tissue other than lard (a cut of flesh which is as calorie dense as nuts would have to be about two thirds fat by weight.)
Lard of course is not known for being a very tasty food on its own (it’s also very incomplete nutrition,) but is used extensively in cooking foods which people have a pronounced tendency to overeat.
most food around is super-stimulus (with exceptions for things like stale cold porridge).
I disagree, depending on how you define “most food around” of course. If you are talking about food that you can go into a restaurant or fast food joint and buy, then I would have to agree with you. If you are talking about the dinners mom cooked back in the 70s, then I would not agree.
Super-stimulus foods are ether very sugary or very salty. Pizza is neither.
Well do you agree that pizza tastes really good? Do you agree that (generally speaking) small children LOVE pizza?
That makes it easy to abuse (=overconsume), but doesn’t make it inherently unhealthy.
It’s unhealthy for the reasons I stated earlier. But let me ask you this: What is a food or drink which you do consider to be unhealthy?
There are foods which, even when I’m not particularly hungry, once I start eating them it’d take a sizeable amount of willpower for me not to eat inordinate amounts of; these include chocolate, certain cookies, certain breakfast cereals, but not pizza. This doesn’t mean I don’t like pizza: I’m generally very happy to eat pizza for dinner, unless I’ve had copious amounts of pizza in the last few days.
I do agree that problem foods are not the same for everyone. However if you talk to people who have difficulty controlling their eating, the same foods and kinds of foods seem to come up pretty regularly . Chocolate is one of them.
As a side note, I get the sense that among people who have difficulty controlling their eating, some tend to have more difficulties with sweet foods like chocolate, cookies, cake, etc. Others seem to have more problems with foods which are fatty but not sweet, like potato chips, hot dogs, bacon, nachos, french fries, lasagna, and yes, pizza. Even so, the tastiness of all of these types of foods seems pretty universal.
depending on how you define “most food around” of course.
I define it as food I see and eat in my home as well as food in the restaurants. I like yummy food and I see no reason to eat non-yummy food.
You seem to think that any tasty food is super-stimulus food. That’s not how most people use the term.
Well do you agree that pizza tastes really good?
Depends. There’s a lot of bad pizza out there. You can get very good pizza but you can also get mediocre or bad pizza.
Do you agree that (generally speaking) small children LOVE pizza?
I don’t see why this is relevant. Small children in general also like pasta and even you probably wouldn’t consider it a super-stimulus food.
What is a food or drink which you do consider to be unhealthy?
The dose make the poison. In small amounts or consumed rarely, pretty much no food or drink is unhealthy (of course there are a bunch of obvious exceptions for allergies, gluten- or lactose-intolerance, outright toxins, etc.).
With this caveat, I generally consider to be unhealthy things like the large variety of liquid sugar (e.g. soda or juice) or, say, hydrogenated fats (e.g margarine, many cookies).
I define it as food I see and eat in my home as well as food in the restaurants.
I’m not sure what kind of food you keep in your home, but thinking on the fact that a huge percentage of American adults are overweight or obese, I would probably agree that “most food around” is super-stimulating.
You seem to think that any tasty food is super-stimulus food. That’s not how most people use the term
Well you asked me why I consider pizza to be a problem. If you don’t want to use the word “super-stimulus,” it doesn’t really affect my point. Pizza tastes good enough to most people that it’s difficult to resist the urge to over-eat. That’s my answer.
Depends. There’s a lot of bad pizza out there.
Oh come on. Please use the Principle of Charity if you engage me. When I assert that “pizza tastes really good,” you know what I mean.
I don’t see why this is relevant. Small children in general also like pasta
Well small children are naive enough to come right out and express a strong preference for the foods they love. And they don’t beg their parents for pasta parties.
The dose make the poison. In small amounts or consumed rarely, pretty much no food or drink is unhealth
Well let me put the question a slightly different way: Do you agree that there exist certain foods which taste really good; which a lot of people have a problem with, which in many ways are like an addiction?
Well small children are naive enough to come right out and express a strong preference for the foods they love. And they don’t beg their parents for pasta parties.
From what I remember, I did occasionally beg for pizza around that age, but if I’m modeling my early childhood psychology right that had as much to do with cultural/media influence as native preference. Pizza is the canonical party food in American children’s media, and its prominence in e.g. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles probably didn’t help.
Media counts for a lot! Show of hands, who here found themselves craving Turkish delight after reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe without actually knowing what it was?
Anecdote time! There was a period when I loved pasta but wouldn’t eat pizza because I had not yet grasped that Tomatoes Are Awesome. Also that book made me classify Turkish Delight as a drug, and Drugs Are Bad don’tcha know. And then when I finally got some I realized it also tastes bad.
Turkish Delight isn’t just one thing. I’ve had mediocre bright-colored (and probably artificially flavored) turkish delight, and delicious fresh transparent turkish delight flavored with rose water. If you care about the subject, you should see if you have access to a middle eastern shop where you can get the good stuff.
Tentative theory: the good stuff isn’t packaged, so it has to be fresh. If it wasn’t fresh, it would have dried out.
From what I remember, I did occasionally beg for pizza around that age, but if I’m modeling my early childhood psychology right that had as much to do with media influence as native preference
Do you agree that part of the reason kids beg for pizza is that it tastes really good?
Let me ask you this: If you gave lab rats a choice between pizza and oatmeal, which do you think they would choose?
Do you agree that part of the reason kids beg for pizza is that it tastes really good?
I think pizza, at least in the United States and during the years around my own childhood, occupied a cultural position that’s not fully describable in terms of its nutritional content. Stimulus concerns are sufficient to explain favoring it over something like (plain) oatmeal, but not over something like spaghetti and meatballs or chicken-fried steak.
I’m told curry occupies a similar position in Japan. Other cultures probably have their own equivalents.
I think pizza, at least in the United States and during the years around my own childhood, occupied a cultural position that’s not fully describable in terms of its nutritional content. Stimulus concerns are sufficient to explain favoring it over something like (plain) oatmeal, but not over something like spaghetti and meatballs or chicken-fried steak.
Ok, I guess I read your first post too quickly. You don’t seem to dispute my basic claim that pizza tastes really good. You also don’t seem to dispute my claim that children’s preference for pizza is evidence of this. Because whatever food children beg for—whether it’s pizza, hot dogs, or curry—is probably going to be something that tastes good.
I do agree that children ask for pizza—as opposed to other tasty foods—for cultural reasons. But I don’t think that contradicts any argument I have made.
Do you agree that part of the reason kids beg for pizza is that it tastes really good?
My kids didn’t want pizza (pretty much ever), until they started school, and then they wanted pizza primarily when having friends over. I think its more social/cultural then anything else.
Also, they are pizza snobs- I’m not allowed to order from a local place because its “too salty, and too greasy.” They’d prefer no pizza, or a usual dinner (stir fry or something) to the wrong pizza.
Also, I’m not sure if “super stimulus” food are super stimulus consistently. I hate fast food burgers, and have since I was little (but sit me down in a hole-in-the-wall mexican place and I’ll eat until I wish I was dead).
Well do you agree that despite your experiences, there do seem to be certain foods which are considered tasty and difficult to resist by large numbers of people?
I actually live in a fairly healthy “bubble,” I don’t know many significantly overweight people. I know the stereotypes, I guess, that fat people guzzle sodas and pound mcdonalds.
I guess the one example of someone who eats typical bad-for-you foods is my wife’s sister who basically grew up only eating burgers (an extremely picky eater with very permissive parents. She still pretty much only eats burgers). But she weighs 125 lbs and runs marathons.
But again, these are my selective anecdotes. I don’t claim representative knowledge.
Let me ask you this: If you gave lab rats a choice between pizza and oatmeal, which do you think they would choose?
I don’t know the answer to this, but I’d caution against using lab rats, which, keep in mind, have quite different dietary needs, as an indicator of human dietary preferences.
I don’t know the answer to this, but I’d caution against using lab rats, which, keep in mind, have quite different dietary needs, as an indicator of human dietary preferences.
Well you are capable of estimating some probabilities, no? I agree that caution is in order, but I feel pretty confident, perhaps 90% probability, that lab rats will choose pizza over oatmeal.
Here’s a study which might affect your probability assessments:
Exposure to a palatable diet had long-term effects on feeding patterns. Rats became overweight because they initially ate more frequently and ultimately ate more of foods with higher energy density.
Well you are capable of estimating some probabilities, no? I agree that caution is in order, but I feel pretty confident, perhaps 90% probability, that lab rats will choose pizza over oatmeal.
I’d take the other side of the bet. Anybody willing to test this?
thinking on the fact that a huge percentage of American adults are overweight or obese, I would probably agree that “most food around” is super-stimulating.
I’d guess it’s got to do with affordability and convenience as well as taste. If I had to cook my own food or spend a sizeable fraction of my monthly wage on it, I would be much less likely to eat it unless I’m really hungry, no matter how good it tasted.
I’d guess it’s got to do with affordability and convenience as well as taste
I would agree, but the same thing could be said about pretty much any super-stimulating good or service. If a dose of heroin were available for a nickel at any convenience store, then probably a lot more people would abuse heroin.
thinking on the fact that a huge percentage of American adults are overweight or obese, I would probably agree that “most food around” is super-stimulating.
Sigh. So you really think that the cause of obesity is that food is just too yummy, too attractive?
Before you answer, think about different countries, other than US. Japan, maybe? France?
Pizza tastes good enough to most people that it’s difficult to resist the urge to over-eat. That’s my answer.
Please use the Principle of Charity if you engage me. When I assert that “pizza tastes really good,” you know what I mean.
Please try to avoid the typical mind fallacy. People around me don’t seem to have the urge to overeat pizza. A lot of them just don’t like it, others might eat a slice once in a while but no more. Nobody is obsessed with pizza and I doubt many will agree that “pizza tastes really good” -- they’ll either say “it depends” or shrug and say that pizza is basic cheap food, to be grabbed on the run when hungry.
No one—not a single person around me—shows signs of having to exert significant will power to avoid stuffing her face with pizza.
Do you agree that there exist certain foods which taste really good; which a lot of people have a problem with, which in many ways are like an addiction?
Presumably there is a logical “AND” between you sentence parts. Depends on what do you mean by “taste really good” (see above about pizza) and by “a lot”.
People generally overeat not because the food is too yummy. People generally overeat for hormonal and psychological reasons.
Well, here’s an easy one that I’ve even got some empirical evidence for: refined sugars being added to common foods where you simply don’t expect sugars to be.
I know that when I’m here in Israel, I have an easy time controlling my eating (to the point that skipping meals sometimes becomes my default), but when I’m in the States, I have a very hard time controlling my eating. I’ve noticed that when I even partially cut refined sugars from my diet, I get through the day with a much clearer mind, particularly in the realm of executive/self-disciplining functions. It’s to the point that I’m noticeably more productive at work without refined sugar.
There are lots of differences in diet between Israel and the USA, but the single biggest background factor is that in Israel, sweets are sweets and not-sweets are not sweetened. Whereas in the US, everything but the very rawest raw ingredients (ie: including sliced bread) has some added refined sugars.
With a large background level of “derp drug” in your basic foodstuffs, it’s probably quite easy to suffer blood-sugar problems, get cravings, and lose a degree of focus and self-control. It’s certainly what I experience when I’m there.
I’ve noticed that when I even partially cut refined sugars from my diet, I get through the day with a much clearer mind, particularly in the realm of executive/self-disciplining functions. It’s to the point that I’m noticeably more productive at work without refined sugar.
ISTM that for me in the short run it’s the other way round, but that’s probably got to do with the fact that most of my sources of refined sugars are sources of caffeine and water as well.
So you really think that the cause of obesity is just that food is just too yummy, too attractive?
Absolutely. (And too available.)
Before you answer, think about different countries, other than US. Japan, maybe? France?
I’ve been thinking about this question pretty intensely for a couple years now.
Please try to avoid the typical mind fallacy.
Where did you get the impression that I am going just by my own experiences?
People around me don’t seem to have the urge to overeat pizza
Roughly what percentage of the people around you are overweight or obese? Of those who are overweight or obese, do they seem to have the urge to eat any foods or types of foods to excess?
Presumably there is a logical “AND” between you sentence parts. Depends on what do you mean by “taste really good” (see above about pizza) and by “a lot”
For purposes of this exchange, I will define “taste really good” as being at the high end of “yummy.” Since you used the word “yummy” before, you presumably know what you meant.
I will define “a lot” as more than 5 million Americans.
Ok, now do you agree that there exist certain foods which (1) are considered to be very yummy by a majority of Americans; (2) which a lot of Americans have a problem with (in the sense that they have difficulty controlling their consumption of these foods); and (3) which are like an addiction (in the sense that some people feel compelled to overconsume such foods despite knowing or having received professional advice that they are consuming too much food)
Well then, you have an unusual viewpoint :-) Any evidence to support it?
Where did you get the impression that I am going just by my own experiences?
Because you didn’t offer any data or other evidence. It looked just like a classic stereotype—look at all these fat Americans who can’t stop shoving pizzas into their pieholes!
Roughly what percentage of the people around you are overweight or obese?
10-15%, maybe?
Of those who are overweight or obese, do they seem to have the urge to eat any foods or types of foods to excess?
Nope, not to my knowledge. Of course some might be wolfing down bags of cookies in the middle of the night, but I don’t know about it :-)
Ok, now do you agree that there exist certain foods...
I will still say no because I don’t think food is addictive. But let me try to see where to do you want to get to.
Let’s take full-sugar soda, e.g. Coca-Cola. There certainly has been lots of accusatory fingers pointed at it. The majority of Americans drinks it, so I guess (1) is kinda satisfied. Do people have difficulty controlling their consumption of it? Yep, so (2) fits as well. On the other hand, these people tend to have difficulty controlling a lot of things in their lives, for example credit cards, so I’m not sure there is anything food-specific going on here. Is it like an addiction? Nope, I don’t think so. “Knowing professional advice” is way too low an incentive for people to change their ways.
Studies of food addiction have focused on highly palatable foods. While fast food falls squarely into that category, it has several other attributes that may increase its salience. This review examines whether the nutrients present in fast food, the characteristics of fast food consumers or the presentation and packaging of fast food may encourage substance dependence, as defined by the American Psychiatric Association. The majority of fast food meals are accompanied by a soda, which increases the sugar content 10-fold. Sugar addiction, including tolerance and withdrawal, has been demonstrated in rodents but not humans. Caffeine is a “model” substance of dependence; coffee drinks are driving the recent increase in fast food sales. Limited evidence suggests that the high fat and salt content of fast food may increase addictive potential. Fast food restaurants cluster in poorer neighborhoods and obese adults eat more fast food than those who are normal weight. Obesity is characterized by resistance to insulin, leptin and other hormonal signals that would normally control appetite and limit reward. Neuroimaging studies in obese subjects provide evidence of altered reward and tolerance. Once obese, many individuals meet criteria for psychological dependence. Stress and dieting may sensitize an individual to reward. Finally, fast food advertisements, restaurants and menus all provide environmental cues that may trigger addictive overeating. While the concept of fast food addiction remains to be proven, these findings support the role of fast food as a potentially addictive substance that is most likely to create dependence in vulnerable populations.
Also, while I don’t find pizza to be at all addictive, my experience is that hamburgers are very much so. I’ve had experiences where I successfully avoided eating any meat for two months in a row, then succumbed to the temptation of eating a single hamburger and then ate some several times a week for the next month.
It’s really a definitions argument, about what one can/should apply the word “addiction” to. As such it’s not very interesting, at least until it gets to connotations and consequences (e.g. if it’s an addiction, the government can regulate it or make it illegal).
succumbed to the temptation
It’s human to succumb to temptations. Not all temptations are addictions.
Succumbing to a temptation occasionally is one thing. But even a single case of that happening leading to a month-long relapse? That’s much more addiction-ish.
It’s really a definitions argument, about what one can/should apply the word “addiction” to. As such it’s not very interesting, at least until it gets to connotations and consequences (e.g. if it’s an addiction, the government can regulate it or make it illegal).
The government can regulate or ban things as public health risks which are not deemed addictions though, and things which are recognized as addictive are not necessarily regulated or banned.
All true, but if you look at it from a different side: if you want to regulate or ban something, would you rather call it an addiction or an unfortunate exercise of the freedom choice? :-)
If you’re liberal enough about what people are allowed to do, should you call anything an addiction? I’m not sure if politics connotatively hijacking scientific terminology is a good reason to change the terminology. Would you suggest something like that?
If you’re liberal enough about what people are allowed to do, should you call anything an addiction?
Sure. I would call things which change your personal biochemistry in the medium term (e.g. opiates) addictive. I think it’s a reasonable use of the term.
There are opiate receptors in the brain because your brain produces transmitters that bind to those receptors. You should expect certain behaviours you engage to change your personal biochemistry in various time spans as well.
Well, the latter characterization would certainly not aid me in my attempts to get it banned, but if calling it an addiction were likely to result in semantic squabbling, I’d probably just call it a public health risk.
Also, while I don’t find pizza to be at all addictive, my experience is that hamburgers are very much so. I’ve had experiences where I successfully avoided eating any meat for two months in a row, then succumbed to the temptation of eating a single hamburger and then ate some several times a week for the next month.
Interesting. I just get such consistent meat cravings that I don’t even bother trying to not eat meat. I just buy a certain amount and eat it as a basic food group.
Because you didn’t offer any data or other evidence.
You’re not doing it either, y’know.
I think you have now (re?)defined at least two words, super-stimulus and addictive, to fit your purposes. Tobacco doesn’t fit your definition of addictive either.
I did define “super-stimulus”, but I don’t think I tried to define “addictive” (and that’s a slippery word, often defined to suit a particular stance).
Have you read this relevant article? It’s confusing when you say you’re disagreeing with a definition, when you actually mean you’re disagreeing with the connotation.
Addiction is “a slippery word, often defined to suit a particular stance”.
Super-stimulus is “mostly used to demonize certain “bad” things (notably, sugar and salt) with the implication that people can’t just help themselves and so need the government (or another nanny) to step in and impose rules.”.
Sure, you finally explicitly said these things but you could have said you disagreed with the connotations in the first place, which would have made the discussion about definitions pointless and perhaps dissolved some disagreement.
Well then, you have an unusual viewpoint :-) Any evidence to support it?
I do, but I prefer to stay focused on the subject at hand.
Because you didn’t offer any data or other evidence.
Let’s see if I have this straight—any time someone makes a generalization about human nature without simultaneously volunteering data or other evidence, one can reasonably assume that they are engaged in the typical mind fallacy? Do I understand you correctly?
Nope, not to my knowledge.
And of those 10-15%, roughly what percentage have tried to lose weight and failed?
Is it like an addiction? Nope,
So let’s see if I understand your position:
You deny that there are a lot of people who consume certain foods even while knowing that they are consuming too much food?
any time someone makes a generalization about human nature without simultaneously volunteering data or other evidence, one can reasonably assume that they are engaged in the typical mind fallacy?
If it contradicts one’s personal experience then yes, one can reasonably assume. Subject to being corrected by evidence, of course.
And of those 10-15%, roughly what percentage have tried to lose weight and failed?
I don’t know. None of them visibly yo-yos. Pretty much everyone once in a while says “I could lose a few pounds”, but it’s meaningless small talk on the order of “Weather is beastly today, eh?”
You deny that there are a lot of people who consume certain foods even while knowing that they are consuming too much food?
No, I don’t deny that, I just think that the word “addiction” is not the appropriate one.
If it contradicts one’s personal experience then yes, one can reasonably assume.
Well your personal experience contradicts mine. So please try to avoid engaging in the Lumifer Typical Mind Fallacy. Thank you.
I don’t know.
But you do know that none of them have a difficult-to-resist urge to eat certain foods or types of foods?
No, I don’t deny that, I just think that the word “addiction” is not the appropriate one.
Well please answer the question I asked and not the question you imagine I had asked.
I asked (among other things) if there were certain foods which “are like an addiction (in the sense that some people feel compelled to overconsume such foods despite knowing or having received professional advice that they are consuming too much food)”
I was careful to say “like an addiction” and to describe what I actually meant.
So it seems you DO agree with me that there exist certain foods which (1) are considered to be very yummy by a majority of Americans; (2) which a lot of Americans have a problem with (in the sense that they have difficulty controlling their consumption of these foods); and (3) which are like an addiction (in the sense that some people feel compelled to overconsume such foods despite knowing or having received professional advice that they are consuming too much food)
Good. Do notice that, as opposed to you, I did not attempt to “make a generalization about human nature” on the basis of my personal experience.
But you do know that none of them have a difficult-to-resist urge to eat certain foods or types of foods?
Of course not.
So it seems you DO agree with me...
I am not inclined to play fisking games (or lets-adjust-this-definition-to-split-the-hair-in-half games) on these forums. No, I do not agree with you. You have enough information to figure out how and why.
Good. Do notice that, as opposed to you, I did not attempt to “make a generalization about human nature” on the basis of my personal experience.
Ummm, here’s one thing you said before:
People generally overeat not because the food is too yummy. People generally overeat for hormonal and psychological reasons.
You didn’t offer any evidence or data to back this up.
It contradicts my personal experience.
Therefore you have committed the Lumifer Typical Mind Fallacy.
Please try to avoid it in the future.
Of course not.
Lol, then your personal experience doesn’t even contradict my basic point.
I am not inclined to play fisking games (or lets-adjust-this-definition-to-split-the-hair-in-half games) on these forums.
Say what? You just redefined my words so that you could answer a different question.
I asked (among other things) if you agreed that there are foods which are “like an addiction (in the sense that some people feel compelled to overconsume such foods despite knowing or having received professional advice that they are consuming too much food)”
You reinterpreted that question as though I was asking whether certain foods are addictive. So that you could easily answer “no” using your own definition of “addictive.”
Please answer the question I asked—not the question you wish or imagine I asked.
No, I do not agree with you. You have enough information to figure out how and why.
Yes, I have enough information to make a pretty good guess as to why you are evading my question.
It also seems that food scientists specifically try to make food as addictive as possible, which seems like an expected outcome from a capitalist food market—whatever encourages the most consumption will win greater market share.
Is it an addiction on par with heroin, alcohol, or tobacco? I doubt it, but using an addiction model might be helpful in treating overeating.
using an addiction model might be helpful in treating overeating.
Don’t have links handy but my impression is that this was tried, lots of times, and failed badly.
As to the general question of food being addictive, this is mostly an issue of how you define “addictive”. I find it useful to draw boundaries so that food (as well as, say, sex or internet) do not fall within them.
On the other hand, I don’t see a sharp divide between “food” and “drugs”. Eating certain kinds of food clearly has certain biochemical consequences.
I find it useful to draw boundaries so that food (as well as, say, sex or internet) do not fall within them.
What word would you use for people who eat so much they can’t move, get HIV from prostitutes, or play WoW with such dedication they die? These people clearly have something in common, and it’s definitely more specific than stupidity.
An unlucky choice of examples, I guess. Switch the question to “could brains that can’t seem to be able to regulate their behaviour to the point they’re severely damaged by it have something in common in their basic physiology that predisposes them to dysregulation when exposed to certain sensory stimuli?” This is still vague enough there’s room for evasion, so if you want to continue that way, I suppose it’s better we forget about this.
Well, as I have said several times it’s a matter of definition and how wide you want to define “addiction” is arbitrary.
Sure, you can define it as positive-feedback loops that subvert conscious control over behavior or something like that—but recall that all definitions must serve a purpose and without one there is no reason to prefer one over another. What’s the purpose here?
Note that the purpose cannot be “Can we call eating disorders addictions?” because that’s a pure definition question—however you define “addiction” will be the answer.
The purpose is to recognize harmful behaviours that people could benefit from fixing and that those behaviours might have similarities that can be exploited. If you browse porn 12 hours a day, it’s quite probable you realize you have a problem, but have significant difficulty in changing your behaviour. If you want to browse porn 12 hours a day, then that’s fine too, and nobody should try to fix you without your permission.
“Can we call eating disorders addictions?”
I don’t care what you call them, it suffices that the above purposes are fulfilled and that people understand each other.
those behaviours might have similarities that can be exploited.
I am highly suspicious of calling a variety of behaviors “addiction” as it implies both the lack of responsibility on the part of the subject and the justification of imposing external rules/constraints on him.
I don’t know of any successful attempts to treat obesity as if it were a true-addiction kind of disorder. One of the problems is that the classic approach to treating addiction is to isolate the addict from the addictive substance. Hard to do that with food and hard to avoid yummy stuff outside of a clinic.
I don’t know of any successful attempts to treat obesity as if it were a true-addiction kind of disorder.
What does this mean? That some people need bariatric surgeries to limit their eating is a pretty clear indicator they can’t control their eating. The kind of isolation rehab you’re talking about is an extreme measure even when treating drug addictions, and comprises a marginal proportion of addiction treatment.
Think nicotine replacement and varenicline for tobacco addiction or naltrexone and disulfiram for alcoholism and we’ll start to be on the same page. Note that I’m not implying these are hugely successful either. All addictions are difficult to treat.
Also certain addiction vocabulary and self awareness techniques like identifying triggers could be relevant for treating compulsive behaviour.
Super-stimulus foods are ether very sugary or very salty
Or fatty.
You seem to think that any tasty food is super-stimulus food.
Shouldn’t pretty much any cooked food be a super-stimulus considering the relevant ancestral environment and why we intricately cook food in the first place?
Small children in general also like pasta and even you probably wouldn’t consider it a super-stimulus food.
Super-stimuli could be different for different age groups. I’ve never seen anyone love plain pasta, they like their ketchup and sauce too.
Shouldn’t pretty much any cooked food be a super-stimulus considering the relevant ancestral environment and why we intricately cook food in the first place?
According to what I read in Scientific American, the human digestive system has evolved to require cooked food; humans can’t survive on what chimpanzees and other primates eat.
Are you saying that plain pasta and bread without toppings are super-stimuli for you? Are you not even using oil? :)
I can understand the bread part if it’s fresh, but as far as I’m concerned pasta doesn’t taste much like anything. Perhaps I’ve just eaten the wrong kind of bland crap.
No, I eat pasta with sauces other than ketchup. And I do eat much more plain bread than the average person e.g. when I’m at the restaurant and I’m waiting for the dishes to arrive, but I think it’s more got to do with boredom and hunger than anything else—it’s not like I have to refrain from keeping any bread at home whenever I’m trying to lose weight lest I binge on it, the way I do with cookies.
Anyway, my general point was that comparing pizza with toppings to pasta without toppings (in terms of how much people, in particular small children, enjoy them) isn’t a fair comparison.
When I was a kid, my grandmother had some trick that caused her bland spaghetti (possibly with some oils and stuff, but mostly things that weren’t visible after it was prepared) to be the best food that I knew of. If not superstimuli, then close to it.
Unfortunately she’s no longer alive, and she never passed the trick on to anyone else, so I can’t say whether I would get the same pleasure out of it as an adult.
Olive oil, lots and lots of it. Thank me later. I have been drenching food with it and getting compliments on my cooking skills for years, and I also use to say it’s a secret given my GF would freak out due to high calories.
(disclaimer: I weight 260 pounds)
Hmm. Well, you can vary the taste by throwing salt into the pot, but I’ve never found a level of salt that I thought would raise the quality more than a point on a ten point scale. Adding spices while boiling, like powdered garlic, will alter the taste somewhat but I think they’re more effective in sauces / applied afterwards, and are often visible.
If someone wants to experiment, my starting point would be this:
Take some good olive oil (extra-virgin, first cold press, etc.) and grate fresh garlic into it. Stir and let it stand covered for an hour or so. Once your pasta is ready, drain it, and then toss with the garlic-infused olive oil.
Apparently my mother tried to make some spaghetti according to my grandmother’s instructions, but it never tasted the same to me. So either it was something really subtle, or there was a placebo effect involved (or both).
ETA: Though now that I think of it, I’m not entirely sure of the “bland” thing anymore—there might have been a sauce involved as well. Damn unreliable memories.
I hear that fresh pasta is comparable to fresh bread.
Interesting. Links or stories? I am very much aware of the difference between fresh-baked bread and “plastic bread” from the supermarket. It’s huge. Are people claiming freshly-made pasta is different to the same degree?
Are people claiming freshly-made pasta is different to the same degree?
It appears not. [1][2][3] Fresh pasta has a more pronounced flavor, and is generally made with a superior variety of flour (that doesn’t keep as well), which means less of the flavor work is done by the sauce.
(I don’t think I’ve ever had fresh pasta, and so don’t have any first-hand reports. I do think fresh bread is worlds better than supermarket bread, though.)
Also, in America at least, making fresh pasta is a very grandmothery thing to do, and so my prior was high enough to be remarkable.
Not sure about that. Fat makes food more tasty (mostly through contributing what’s called “mouth feel”), but it doesn’t look like a super-stimulus to me.
Shouldn’t pretty much any cooked food be a super-stimulus
Well, depends on how do you want to define “super-stimulus”. I understand it to mean triggering hardwired biological preferences above and beyond the usual and normal desire to eat tasty food. The two substances specifically linked to super-stimulus are sugar and salt.
Again, super-stimulus is not the same thing as yummy.
Dunno about 99% (though if you set the bar as low as “willing to eat” I probably would), but I do find 85% dark chocolate quite addictive (as in, I seldom manage to buy a tablet and not finish it within a couple days). But I know I’m weird.
I meant it in the colloquial ‘takes lots of willpower to stop’ sense, not the technical ‘once I stop I get withdrawal symptoms’ sense. (Is there a technical term for the former?)
(OK, it does seem to me that whenever I eat chocolate daily for a few weeks and then stop, I feel much grumpier for a few days, but that’s another story, and anyway it’s not like I took enough statistics to rule out it being a coincidence,)
Not quite—I’m talking about the upper extreme of what Yvain here calls “wanting”, though that word in the common vernacular has strong connotations of what he calls “approving”.
I meant it in the colloquial ‘takes lots of willpower to stop’ sense, not the technical ‘once I stop I get withdrawal symptoms’ sense. (Is there a technical term for the former?)
Did our preferences mostly evolve for “tasty food” or for raw meat, fruit, vegetables, nuts etc? I thought super-stimulus usually means something that goes beyond the stimuli in the ancestral environment where the preferences for the relevant stimuli were selected for.
I don’t understand how you draw the line between stimuli and super-stimuli without such reasoning.
I guess it’s possible most our preferences evolved for cooked food, but I’d like to see the evidence first before I believe it.
ETA: I don’t think there’s necessarily anything wrong with super-stimuli, so let’s drop the baggage of that connotation.
I don’t understand how you draw the line between stimuli and super-stimuli
Well, I actually don’t want to draw the line. I am not a big fan of the super-stimulus approach, though obviously humans have some built-in preferences. This terminology was mostly used to demonize certain “bad” things (notably, sugar and salt) with the implication that people can’t just help themselves and so need the government (or another nanny) to step in and impose rules.
I think a continuous axis going from disgusting to very tasty is much more useful.
Well, sure. Similarly, a continuous axis designating typical level of risk is more useful than classifying some activities as “dangerous” and others as “safe.” Which doesn’t mean there don’t exist dangerous activities.
So you disagreed with the connotation. I disagree with it too, and edited the grandparent accordingly. I still like the word though, and think it’s useful. I suppose getting exposed to certain kind of marketing could make me change my mind.
In that case, wouldn’t you say that anyone who suffers from akrasia (which is pretty much everyone at some time) has a failure of understanding on a gut level? My subconscious mind doesn’t seem to understand that it’s a bad idea to eat a box of pizza every night; so I have to rely on my conscious mind to take charge, or at least try to.
Occasionally even health-conscious people eat stuff like pizza, which is arguably the equivalent of buying the occasional lottery ticket. In each case, the conscious mind is aware that one is doing something counter-productive. In the case of a lottery ticket, one is enjoying the fantasy of being free from his day-to-day financial worries,even though there is essentially zero chance of actually succeeding. In the case of pigging out, one is enjoying the feeling of being stuffed with tasty food, even though there is essentially zero chance that there will be a food shortage next week which will justify his having pigged out.
Bad analogy. Eating pizza (or any other high-energy food that you happen to like) is intrinsically rewarding. You don’t do it all the time because you trade off this reward with other rewards (e.g. not being fat and hence ugly and unhealthy). Buying a lottery ticket is not intrinsically rewarding if you don’t win, which happens with a negligible probability.
Well, buying a lottery ticket may be intrinsically rewarding if you suffer from gambling addiction, which means that you’ve screwed your reward system and by gambling you are doing a sort of wireheading. That’s pretty much like doing drugs.
At the level of conscious preferences, you don’t want to do that.
I don’t know about you, but when I buy a lottery ticket, I usually end up having a few nice daydreams about hitting the $400 million jackpot or whatever. So I would say that for me (and probably many other people), it’s intrinsically rewarding.
FWIW I’m not a gambling addict.
Agree, that’s pretty much the point. Of course some forms of wireheading are so dangerous that even occasional indulgence is a bad idea, for example heroin and cocaine. Other forms are less dangerous so that occasional indulgence is safe for most people.
I don’t know, I’ve never bought lottery tickets, I may only gamble token amounts of money at events where it is socially expected to do so.
Maybe I’m wired differently than most people, but what do you find rewarding about it?
We are not talking of something like tasty food or sex, which your ancestors brains were evolutionary adapted to seek since the time they were lizards, gambling opportunities did not exist in the environment of evolutionary adaptedness, you need some high-level cognitive processes to tell a lottery ticket from any random piece of paper.
It’s true that people have difficulties reasoning informally about low-probablity high-payoff (or high-cost) events, which explains why gambling is so popular, but gambling is also one of the few high-uncertainty scenarios where we can apply formal methods to obtain precise expected (monetary) value estimations. Once you do the math, you know it’s not worth the cost.
But obviously you knew that already, so my question is, how can you still daydream about winning the lottery without experiencing cognitive dissonance?
As mentioned above, the pleasant daydream of hitting the big jackpot.
I disagree; for example one can easily envision a hypothetical caveman deciding whether to hunt for a big animal which may or may not be in the next valley.
I don’t know. But I can tell you that it’s a pleasant feeling. Let me ask you this: Do you ever daydream or fantasize about things which (1) you wish would happen; and (2) are extremely unlikely to happen?
Sure. But would this hypothetical caveman still decide to hunt if he was pretty much certain that the animal was not there?
Uh, sexual fantasies aside (which I can blame my “reptile brain” for), I don’t think so.
I’m not sure, it would probably depend on his assessment of the costs, benefits, and risks involved. In any event, I don’t see the point of your question. You asserted that gambling opportunities did not exist in the ancestral environment; that’s not so.
I think you are pretty unusual; my impression is that most people daydream as far as I know.
But let me ask you this: Do you agree that there a decent number of people like me who are not gambling addicts but still occasionally buy lottery tickets? If you agree, then what do you think is the motivation?
That’s just decision making under uncertainty. I was talking about proper gambling, such as buying lottery tickets. My point is that you need some high-level (“System 2”) processing to associate the action of buying a ticket to the scenario of winning vast riches, since these are not the sort of things that existed in the ancestral environment.
But if you understand probability, then your System 2 should not make that association.
Given army1987′s comment I suppose it is possible to get that association from social conditioning before you understand probability.
On further reflection I think I overstated my claim. I do speculate/daydream about fictional scenarios, and I find it rewarding (I used to that more often as a child, but I still do it).
Therefore I suppose it is possible to counterfactually pretend to having won the lottery using suspension of disbelief in the same way as when enjoing or creatiing a work of fiction. But in this case, you don’t actually need to buy a ticket, you can just pretend to have bought one!
Yes.
Habit created by social conditioning looks like a plausible answer.
I still have no idea what your point was. “proper junk food” didn’t exist in the ancestral environment; “proper pornography” did not exist in the ancestral environment either. So what?
Do you need System 2 processing to associate an erotic story with sexual release? To associate the words “Coca Cola” with a nice sweet taste?
Well when you were a child, did you play with toys, for example toy trucks ? And was the play more enjoyable if it were a somewhat realistic toy truck as opposed to, say, a block of wood?
It’s not very plausible to me. For example, if it were credibly announced that all of the winning tickets for a particular drawing had already been sold, I doubt that occasional lottery players would buy tickets for that drawing.
You either are using “System 2” with a narrower meaning than standard or are making a factually incorrect assumption. (There were no cars in the ancestral environment, and some people have driven cars while sleepwalking.)
Once you learn how to drive a car, you can do it using only System 1, but you need System 2 to learn it.
I used to daydream a lot, in particular of winning the lottery, when I was a child, but I’m pretty sure it’s something I was taught to do by family, teachers and mass media. (The first lottery with really big jackpots in my country had just been introduced, and everybody was talking about what they would do with all that money.)
It’s not like everything is either evolved or relies on cold emotionless System 2 only. I mean, it’s easy for people to get hooked on TVTropes, but it’s not like it fulfils any obvious ancestral desire.
For what value of ‘intrinsically’? It sure isn’t rewarding for a paperclip maximizer, and IIUC you seem to be implying that doing drugs isn’t intrinsically rewarding for non-addicted people.
Do I have to specify that I was talking about humans?
Non-addicted people generally understand that addictive drugs like heroin or cocaine can give them short-term rewards but potentially hamper the satisfaction of their long-term preferences, hence they assign a negative expected utility to them.
On the other hand, eating pizza in moderate amounts is consistent with the satisfaction of long-term preferences.
I think for the value of “biologically hardwired into humans”.
I’m not quite sure about this; there are certainly humans who find pizza inedible for cultural reasons. I suppose you could argue that the composition of pizza is such that it would appeal to a hypothetical “unbiased” human, but that might still be problematic.
I think the argument is really for “any … high-energy food that you happen to like”, not for culture-specific things like pizza.
(I was going to say ‘then so is alcohol’ (specifically, the feeling of being tipsy), then I remembered of this claim and realized I was probably about to commit the typical mind fallacy.)
What’s wrong with healthy people (in particular, gluten-tolerant) eating pizza?
It’s high carb? It gives me heartburn (probably gluten intolerance?). If you are trying to go on a cut i.e. want a six pack it’s a bad idea.
And why is that a problem? You seem to be implying that a low-carb diet is The Only True Way which looks doubtful.
The claim was about “health-conscious” people, not body-image-conscious.
Because of the negative effects it has on your insulin response, leading to pancreas fatigue and type 2 diabetes.
I was under the impression that a low body fat percentage was healthier. Perhaps I’m wrong. I must admit my beliefs are influenced by aesthetics. I’d bet on low abdominal fat been the optimal via a low-ish carb diet.
In which case you should take “healthy people” to mean those who are not trying to go on a cut because they already have a six-pack.
We know that low-carb is effective at losing weight. The jury is still out on whether low-carb is healthy in the long term.
Similarly, while it is clear that being obese is unhealthy, I don’t think that there is any evidence to show that being very thin (having low body fat %) is healthier than being normal.
Depends on what you mean by normal?
The usual: 10-20% BF for men (you can have less if you’re actually an athlete), 20-30% for women.
Oh you mean healthy not normal? Few men are at 10-20%.
I mean “normal” in the sense of “not broken”, NOT in the sense of “average”.
Having said that, about 20% of US men under 40 have less than 20% body fat. Source
See here, though it uses BMI rather than body fat %.
Yes, and it does show the expected U-shaped curve.
BMI is pretty useless as an individual metric, though.
That was the point. (I also incorrectly remembered that the minimum was shifted a bit to the right of what’s usually called “normal weight”, i.e. 18.5 to 25, but in the case of healthy people who’ve never smoked it looks like that range is about right.)
I guess it depends on whether you eat it for dinner, or as a snack in addition to whatever else you’d normally have for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I suspect he’s thinking of the latter.
(Likewise, I guess that so long as you’re not lactose-intolerant a large cone of ice cream isn’t particularly unhealthy as modern foods go, if it’s all you’re having for lunch.)
The main problem is that for a large percentage of people, pizza is a super-stimulus. i.e. it tastes far better that what was normally available in the ancestral environment so that it’s difficult to avoid over-consuming it. Of course the health dangers of over-consumption of food are well known.
If you think pizza is a bad example, feel free to substitute candy bars or coca-cola.
I like to know how you’d justify this claim. Remember that pizza has been available in the United States since the beginning of the 20th century and has been popular since at least the 1950′s, yet the obesity epidemic has ony happened relatively recently.
Also, potato chips were invented in the 19th century; ice cream has been around for ages; ditto for french fries. Of course, obesity has also been growing as a problem over the years too.
I think what’s changed is that these types of foods have become much more easily available in terms of cost, convenience, and marketing.
I don’t think cost has changed much. Reportedly, in the 1950′s a burger cost 15 cents (about $1.3 in today’s money) and a slice of pizza cost 25 cents (about $2.2 in today’s money). Convenience might have changed but not by a lot, and that may just be because people now just go out for food more often than making it at home.
However, marketing could be the big factor here.
Just based on my general observations, I would have to disagree. Just walking down the street in New York, there are lots of places where you can get a large slice of pizza for $1.00. That’s about 8 minutes of work at the minimum wage. Back in 1985, I remember the minimum wage was $3.35 per hour, so 8 minutes of work would have been about 45 cents. I don’t recall ever seeing a large slice of pizza for 45 cents back in the 80s.
Also, during the 80s, I remember spending about $5.00 for a typical deli lunch consisting of a turkey sandwich and a can of soda. Twenty-five years later, it costs about $6.00 and there are still places where you can get it for $5.00. Or less.
Besides that, EITC has increased the effective wage.
It also occurs to me that portion sizes have perhaps increased. If you a Google image search for “portion” “sizes” “over” “time,” you get all kinds of charts making this claim. I wasn’t around in the 1950s, but it does seem that, at a minimum, soda sizes have increased. I vaguely remember that it was common to get a 10 ounce bottle of soda 30 or 40 years ago. I haven’t seen a 10 ounce bottle in years; it seems that 16 ounces is the standard single serving bottle size and 20 ounces is pretty common too.
Here’s an article which seems to agree:
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=129685
So if you look at things in terms of dollars per calorie, the decline in the price of prepared foods may very well be even more dramatic than it seems on the surface.
What do you mean by that exactly? How many burgers could the median worker in 1950 buy with their hourly wage, and how many can the median worker today buy with theirs?
That’s a very very complex (and controversial!) topic because ‘median worker’ or ‘median household’ is not well-defined. Many households during that era were single-income (not nearly as many as popular opinion would suggest, but still far more than today). There’s also the fact that there were more married couples and more children than today. You also have to consider that food hasn’t made up the bulk of household expenditures during modern times. Today food accounts for 10-15% of the average family’s living expenses, and from the limited information I was able to find, it was about 30% in 1950.
To answer your question, I honestly don’t know.
Except that, empirically speaking, there are lots and lots of people who actually can and do consume candy bars, soda pop, or pizza in moderation.
Which makes me wonder about the actual mind-mechanisms behind “superstimulus”, since we seem to be so very good at learning to deal with it.
(Yes, I do have a hypothesis regarding obesity epidemics that’s more complex than “Everyone in whole countries is getting caught in a superstimulus feedback loop with their eating habits.”)
It strikes me as an overstatement to say that “we” seem to be very good at dealing with it. In most Western countries, the rates of overweight and obesity are quite high and/or rising. Surely a large majority of those people are failing to eat some kinds of food in moderation. And I doubt those people are overconsuming fresh vegetables and oatmeal.
Anyway, do you agree that there is a problem with a decent percentage of people overconsuming foods which tend to be far richer in calories/salt/fat/sugar/etc. than what was typically available in the ancestral environment? And if you agree, what do you think is the cause of the problem?
I think that “decent percentage” is imprecise, but there’s definitely something going on that’s making people fatter.
It could be bad habits. It could be superstimulus effects (though I’m suspicious regarding the lack of professional literature on a concept that primarily seems to be LessWrongian rather than empirically studied). It could be food additives.
I don’t know yet; I need to see some actual studies to make a judgement.
Putting aside the “why” question, do you agree that if you look at people who are overweight or obese, their overconsumption problems tend to focus on certain types of foods, which tend to be very high in calories?
Overconsumption means “high in calories” almost (if not quite) by definition. Someone who eats raw cabbage nonstop simply isn’t going to get to overconsumption levels.
So that means your answer is “yes”?
Also, it sounds like you are saying that among people who have difficulty resisting the urge to eat, there is no particular preference for foods like ice cream, french fries and cookies over foods like cabbage, tomatoes, and broccoli, it’s just that the former foods are more likely to cause obesity because they are higher in calories.
Do I understand you correctly?
I’m saying that I don’t know of particular preferences within the set of high-calorie foods. There is also the problem of consuming mid-calorie foods like bread or pasta (which humans did for millenia without getting too damn fat until about the 1990s) in completely excessive amounts, for instance.
So basically, I don’t think you can yell “COOKIES ARE SUPERSTIMULUS, REDUCE COOKIE PRODUCTION NOW!” when in fact lots of fat people are consuming massive amounts of pasta while plenty of thin people consume small amounts of cookies. The picture is much more complicated than simply assuming some arbitrarily constructed reference class of “things not in the ancestral environment” (besides, ancestral hunter-gatherers often got plenty more calories than ancestral peasant farmers, despite coming earlier: which one is our “ancestral environment” here?), which we choose to label as “superstimulus” (does that term have a scientific grounding?), will automatically short-circuit people’s decision making.
This bears repeating. Also keep in mind, many people with western European ancestry have a much higher threshold for diabetes, due to that ancestry’s post-agricultural dietary habits. After several thousand years, agriculture becomes part of the evolutionary environment.
(In the long view, I often stop and ponder whose ancestral environment and population we are, and how the cultural and environmental choices we’re making today will shape the genetic predispositions of our 61st century descendants.)
Maybe our 61st century descendants will have genes, but if we haven’t managed to beat the crap out of evolution and impose our own life-optimization criteria by the year 6000, I will be extremely disappointed.
That’s the really mysterious bit to me.
I don’t think excessive quantities are likely to be the problem, though. I read a caloric breakdown once of the lifestyle of a 10th-century Scandinavian farmer; the energy requirements turn out to be absurd by modern standards, something like six thousand kcal just to stay upright at the end of the day in peak season. (Winter life was a bit more sedentary, but still strenuous by modern standards.) If you’re consuming that much food regularly, an extra five hundred kcal here or there is a rounding error; it’s implausible that everyone back then just happened to manage their consumption to within a few percent. Nor was the civilization as a whole calorie-bound, as best we can tell. But judging from skeletal evidence, they didn’t suffer from many of the diseases of civilization that we do.
The obvious diff here is exertion, but the nutritional literature I’ve read tends to downplay its role. Or you could blame portion sizes relative to exertion, but larger portions are only fattening because of the excess calories, which brings us back to the original mystery. So either some novel aspect of the post-1900 diet is making modern Westerners fat, or the archaeology or the nutritional science is wrong, or I’m missing a step. And I don’t think I’m missing a step.
If I had to venture a guess, I might blame lots of simple sugars in the modern diet—honey was the only sweetener available for most of human history, and it was rare and expensive. But that’s extremely tentative and feels a little glib.
The really creepy part? Whatever it is, it’s making Western animals fat. Including the ones that aren’t fed scraps of human food.
That is remarkably interesting-if-true. Data?
This article contains links to several peer-reviewed research studies on the matter.
That doesn’t seem to contradict my point. It sounds like you do agree with me that there are certain foods or types of foods which (generally speaking) tend to be difficult for obese people to resist eating.
Right?
Once again, no. Please attempt to understand my view here instead of trying to force your own. I do not necessarily believe, in the absence of evidence, that the obesity epidemic arises from certain foods (tasty, unhealthy, or otherwise) drugging people into addiction just by being more intense than prehistoric foods.
No, food is not in and of itself a drug that can magically alter our decision-making apparatus in some way that doesn’t wash out when placed next to the other elements of individual lifestyle.
Some foods may contain drugs. Chocolate, for instance, contains theobromide, a mild stimulant and euphoric I find quite enjoyable. Beer contains alcohol, a fairly strong depressant. Some cheeses are said to contain opiates, which supposedly explain the “addictive” quality of cheeseburgers (though studies don’t seem to indicate very much evidence beyond that expected of motivated reasoners). Yet nobody eats or drinks chocolate-laced beer with cheese in it.
I think that attempting to talk about the obesity epidemic as a failure of rationality due to superstimulus in foods is an attempt to kick a sloppy variable and turn it into a stiff one. I think we need a competing alternate hypothesis.
For one thing, it’s not as if healthy foods are all dull! A simple chopped-vegetable salad made with fresh ingredients is tasty and healthy, for instance. (Of course, this assumes you live somewhere in which fresh, nutritious veggies are affordable in bulk.… hmm, another contributing factor to the obesity problem?)
I am trying to understand your view, and you are not helping things by evading my questions. The question I asked you said nothing about the obesity epidemic or the causes of obesity. You read that into the question yourself.
I will try one last time: Put aside the causes of obesity and the obesity epidemic.
I’m simply asking if you agree with me that for obese people, there tend to be certain foods or types of foods which are difficult to resist eating. It’s an extremely simple yes or no question.
And, to the best of my knowledge, the answer is no. Obese people don’t have a hard time not-eating some foods, they have a hard time not eating in general.
Here’s some research which may change your mind:
http://jn.nutrition.org/content/133/3/835S.full
By the way, is it a surprise to you that chocolate holds the spot as the most craved food as opposed to, say, raw cauliflower?
Here’s another big surprise for you:
Since chocolate contains a stimulant/euphoric drug, no, this is not surprising, and I even mentioned it.
What would be surprising is if we could see a correlation between obesity and cravings for specific non-chocolate items, or even some way of showing that people who don’t eat chocolate are massively less likely to be obese.
So are you conceding that at least chocolate is a specific food or type of food which many obese people tend to have difficulty resisting?
And what of the claim that “Women in particular report extreme liking of or craving for foods that are both sweet and high in fat (e.g., candies, cakes or pastries, ice cream)”
Do you dispute it? Is it a surprise to you?
No, I’m saying that people have some difficulty resisting chocolate. That includes thin people.
And “people” includes “obese people,” agreed?
Also, please answer my other question:
Do you dispute the claim that “Women in particular report extreme liking of or craving for foods that are both sweet and high in fat (e.g., candies, cakes or pastries, ice cream)”?
Is it a surprise to you?
Are we trying to find things out anymore, or are you just trying to hammer home “HA! OBESITY IS CAUSED BY SUPERSTIMULUS! THERE’S SOME MINOR EVIDENCE OF THINGS THAT SOUND KINDA LIKE SUPERSTIMULUS BEING SUBJECT TO CRAVINGS! TAKE THIS, YOU IGNORAMUS!”?
Because this is sounding like the latter.
Yes, I am trying to nail down your position so that I can figure out exactly where we disagree.
You keep trying to change the subject to the causes of obesity. Which is an important question but not the question I have been addressing.
The threshold question is whether there are certain foods or types of foods which are particularly difficult to resist.
If we agreed on that, then we could go on to discuss why such foods or types of foods are difficult to resist—is it because they are super-stimulus foods or some other reason? We could also discuss the role such foods play in obesity at an individual or societal level. But those are different questions.
You seem to have denied that there exist certain foods or types of foods which are difficult to resist. However, you seem to have made an exception for chocolate.
I have presented evidence that there are other foods which are difficult to resist “foods that are both sweet and high in fat (e.g., candies, cakes or pastries, ice cream)”—at least for women.
You refuse to tell me if you dispute this evidence. Why are you playing hide the ball with your position?
Trust me, the sky won’t fall if you simply admit that you were wrong.
Do you dispute the claim that “Women in particular report extreme liking of or craving for foods that are both sweet and high in fat (e.g., candies, cakes or pastries, ice cream)”? (And if not, is it a surprise to you?) This is the last time I will ask.
Ok, I’ve spotted the issue. I thought you were linking the two things: “These foods are hard to resist because they are superstimuli. Here, let me prove there are foods that are ‘hard to resist’ (whatever that means). Now that I’ve done so, it must be because they are superstimuli.”
My problems with this are: you need to separate the experience of cravings in absence of food (ie: I can crave chocolate but not have chocolate) from the actual “difficulty to resist” (that needs definition) when the food item is in front of you. You then also need to define “superstimulus” such that the definition makes predictions, and justify belief in such a concept via showing that it applies to your examples of craved foods.
I’ve made an “exception” for actual drugs, as separate from the other content of food.
To show what I mean, it should be plain that if I lace a pitcher of water with morphine, you will slowly develop an addiction to the water in my pitcher. This is not because water is difficult to resist, it’s because I drugged the water. The fact that theobromide or caffeine occur naturally doesn’t make the food “hard to resist”, it makes it contain a drug.
I don’t see a working definition of “difficult to resist”, is the issue. Lots of people get cravings and don’t act on them, so getting a craving is not evidence that these women actually display less power of self-control when confronted with, say, cake, versus a control group.
In the same fashion, lots of people might say, “I need a damn drink!” when they’re stressed-out, but the overwhelming majority of them don’t become alcoholics, and most don’t even actually take a drink!
Basically, you seem to my eyes to be failing to differentiate between “People like X” and “People can’t control themselves around X”.
The Rat Park experiments suggest otherwise, at least as regards morphine.
It’s reasonable to believe that if people report “extreme liking of or craving,” for certain foods or types of foods, then a large percentage of people will find such foods difficult to resist. No reasonable person would dispute this without very strong evidence.
But anyway, we can’t even get to that point because you won’t even concede that people (or at least women) report “extreme liking of or craving” for certain foods or types of foods. I asked you three times if you you disputed this claim and you ignored my question each time.
Instead, you have decided to strawman me:
There’s a difference between “extreme liking or craving for X” and “liking X.” There is also a difference between “people have difficulty resisting X” and “people can’t control themselves around X.”
Sorry, but I have no interest in engaging with people who insist on playing hide the ball with their position. Nor do I engage with people who exaggerate my position to make it sound unreasonable.
This exchange is concluded.
Goodbye.
So… what is it?
Why do you think I have a definite position? My “position” here is that the vocabulary for hypotheses is ill-formed. We have effectively spent an entire conversation saying nothing at all because the terms were never defined clearly.
I don’t think this is true. Or, rather, if you think that pizza is a super-stimulus food, most food around is super-stimulus (with exceptions for things like stale cold porridge).
Super-stimulus foods are ether very sugary or very salty. Pizza is neither.
What pizza is, it’s a cheap easily-available high-calorie convenience food. That makes it easy to abuse (=overconsume), but doesn’t make it inherently unhealthy.
I don’t think this is at all accurate as a generalization. Insofar as any food can be said to qualify as a superstimulus, some of the best contenders are savory foods which are high in fats and starches, which in our ancestral environment would have been valuable sources of calories, calorie overabundance being far too rare a problem for us to be evolutionarily prepared against.
Peanut butter is a good example of a food which would have been an extreme outlier in terms of nutrient density in our ancestral environment (not for nothing is it the main ingredient in a therapeutic food to restore bodily health to people afflicted by famine) which is extremely moreish, despite not being especially high in either sugar or salt. Cheese is a similar case.
Not an outlier at all. Paleo hunter-gatherers certainly ate nuts. And meat (not the lean muscle meat, but the whole-animal meat including organs and fat) is probably higher in nutrient density.
Nuts would have been one of the richest sources of macronutrients by density in our ancestral environment, and they wouldn’t have been available in great quantity, which is probably in large part why they’re such an addictive food.
(My girlfriend has a nut allergy, and since I’ve started having to keep track of nut content in foods, I’ve noticed that the “snack” aisles in grocery stores can be divided, with fairly little remainder, into chips, pretzels, and nut-based foods.)
Liver is higher in micronutrients than nuts, or just about anything else for that matter, and I suspect that it avoids being a superstimulus to our senses because it would be one of the few food sources in our ancestral environment that it’s actually possible to get a nutrient overdose on (many species’ livers contain toxic concentrations of vitamins, not to mention the various toxins it’s filtered out of its host’s blood.) In terms of macronutrients, nuts have a higher calorie concentration than any animal tissue other than lard (a cut of flesh which is as calorie dense as nuts would have to be about two thirds fat by weight.)
Lard of course is not known for being a very tasty food on its own (it’s also very incomplete nutrition,) but is used extensively in cooking foods which people have a pronounced tendency to overeat.
It can be: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lardo and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salo_(food).
I disagree, depending on how you define “most food around” of course. If you are talking about food that you can go into a restaurant or fast food joint and buy, then I would have to agree with you. If you are talking about the dinners mom cooked back in the 70s, then I would not agree.
Well do you agree that pizza tastes really good? Do you agree that (generally speaking) small children LOVE pizza?
It’s unhealthy for the reasons I stated earlier. But let me ask you this: What is a food or drink which you do consider to be unhealthy?
There are foods which, even when I’m not particularly hungry, once I start eating them it’d take a sizeable amount of willpower for me not to eat inordinate amounts of; these include chocolate, certain cookies, certain breakfast cereals, but not pizza. This doesn’t mean I don’t like pizza: I’m generally very happy to eat pizza for dinner, unless I’ve had copious amounts of pizza in the last few days.
I do agree that problem foods are not the same for everyone. However if you talk to people who have difficulty controlling their eating, the same foods and kinds of foods seem to come up pretty regularly . Chocolate is one of them.
As a side note, I get the sense that among people who have difficulty controlling their eating, some tend to have more difficulties with sweet foods like chocolate, cookies, cake, etc. Others seem to have more problems with foods which are fatty but not sweet, like potato chips, hot dogs, bacon, nachos, french fries, lasagna, and yes, pizza. Even so, the tastiness of all of these types of foods seems pretty universal.
I define it as food I see and eat in my home as well as food in the restaurants. I like yummy food and I see no reason to eat non-yummy food.
You seem to think that any tasty food is super-stimulus food. That’s not how most people use the term.
Depends. There’s a lot of bad pizza out there. You can get very good pizza but you can also get mediocre or bad pizza.
I don’t see why this is relevant. Small children in general also like pasta and even you probably wouldn’t consider it a super-stimulus food.
The dose make the poison. In small amounts or consumed rarely, pretty much no food or drink is unhealthy (of course there are a bunch of obvious exceptions for allergies, gluten- or lactose-intolerance, outright toxins, etc.).
With this caveat, I generally consider to be unhealthy things like the large variety of liquid sugar (e.g. soda or juice) or, say, hydrogenated fats (e.g margarine, many cookies).
I’m not sure what kind of food you keep in your home, but thinking on the fact that a huge percentage of American adults are overweight or obese, I would probably agree that “most food around” is super-stimulating.
Well you asked me why I consider pizza to be a problem. If you don’t want to use the word “super-stimulus,” it doesn’t really affect my point. Pizza tastes good enough to most people that it’s difficult to resist the urge to over-eat. That’s my answer.
Oh come on. Please use the Principle of Charity if you engage me. When I assert that “pizza tastes really good,” you know what I mean.
Well small children are naive enough to come right out and express a strong preference for the foods they love. And they don’t beg their parents for pasta parties.
Well let me put the question a slightly different way: Do you agree that there exist certain foods which taste really good; which a lot of people have a problem with, which in many ways are like an addiction?
From what I remember, I did occasionally beg for pizza around that age, but if I’m modeling my early childhood psychology right that had as much to do with cultural/media influence as native preference. Pizza is the canonical party food in American children’s media, and its prominence in e.g. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles probably didn’t help.
Media counts for a lot! Show of hands, who here found themselves craving Turkish delight after reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe without actually knowing what it was?
Anecdote time! There was a period when I loved pasta but wouldn’t eat pizza because I had not yet grasped that Tomatoes Are Awesome. Also that book made me classify Turkish Delight as a drug, and Drugs Are Bad don’tcha know. And then when I finally got some I realized it also tastes bad.
Turkish Delight isn’t just one thing. I’ve had mediocre bright-colored (and probably artificially flavored) turkish delight, and delicious fresh transparent turkish delight flavored with rose water. If you care about the subject, you should see if you have access to a middle eastern shop where you can get the good stuff.
Tentative theory: the good stuff isn’t packaged, so it has to be fresh. If it wasn’t fresh, it would have dried out.
Thanks for the tip! The only Turkish delight I remember having was bright-colored and came in a box.
Do you agree that part of the reason kids beg for pizza is that it tastes really good?
Let me ask you this: If you gave lab rats a choice between pizza and oatmeal, which do you think they would choose?
I think pizza, at least in the United States and during the years around my own childhood, occupied a cultural position that’s not fully describable in terms of its nutritional content. Stimulus concerns are sufficient to explain favoring it over something like (plain) oatmeal, but not over something like spaghetti and meatballs or chicken-fried steak.
I’m told curry occupies a similar position in Japan. Other cultures probably have their own equivalents.
Ok, I guess I read your first post too quickly. You don’t seem to dispute my basic claim that pizza tastes really good. You also don’t seem to dispute my claim that children’s preference for pizza is evidence of this. Because whatever food children beg for—whether it’s pizza, hot dogs, or curry—is probably going to be something that tastes good.
I do agree that children ask for pizza—as opposed to other tasty foods—for cultural reasons. But I don’t think that contradicts any argument I have made.
My kids didn’t want pizza (pretty much ever), until they started school, and then they wanted pizza primarily when having friends over. I think its more social/cultural then anything else.
Also, they are pizza snobs- I’m not allowed to order from a local place because its “too salty, and too greasy.” They’d prefer no pizza, or a usual dinner (stir fry or something) to the wrong pizza.
Also, I’m not sure if “super stimulus” food are super stimulus consistently. I hate fast food burgers, and have since I was little (but sit me down in a hole-in-the-wall mexican place and I’ll eat until I wish I was dead).
Just adding a few anecdotes.
Well do you agree that despite your experiences, there do seem to be certain foods which are considered tasty and difficult to resist by large numbers of people?
I actually live in a fairly healthy “bubble,” I don’t know many significantly overweight people. I know the stereotypes, I guess, that fat people guzzle sodas and pound mcdonalds.
I guess the one example of someone who eats typical bad-for-you foods is my wife’s sister who basically grew up only eating burgers (an extremely picky eater with very permissive parents. She still pretty much only eats burgers). But she weighs 125 lbs and runs marathons.
But again, these are my selective anecdotes. I don’t claim representative knowledge.
And the overweight people you know don’t seem to have any specific foods or types of foods which they have trouble resisting?
I don’t know the answer to this, but I’d caution against using lab rats, which, keep in mind, have quite different dietary needs, as an indicator of human dietary preferences.
Well you are capable of estimating some probabilities, no? I agree that caution is in order, but I feel pretty confident, perhaps 90% probability, that lab rats will choose pizza over oatmeal.
Here’s a study which might affect your probability assessments:
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0060407
I’d take the other side of the bet. Anybody willing to test this?
I’d guess it’s got to do with affordability and convenience as well as taste. If I had to cook my own food or spend a sizeable fraction of my monthly wage on it, I would be much less likely to eat it unless I’m really hungry, no matter how good it tasted.
I would agree, but the same thing could be said about pretty much any super-stimulating good or service. If a dose of heroin were available for a nickel at any convenience store, then probably a lot more people would abuse heroin.
Sigh. So you really think that the cause of obesity is that food is just too yummy, too attractive?
Before you answer, think about different countries, other than US. Japan, maybe? France?
Please try to avoid the typical mind fallacy. People around me don’t seem to have the urge to overeat pizza. A lot of them just don’t like it, others might eat a slice once in a while but no more. Nobody is obsessed with pizza and I doubt many will agree that “pizza tastes really good” -- they’ll either say “it depends” or shrug and say that pizza is basic cheap food, to be grabbed on the run when hungry.
No one—not a single person around me—shows signs of having to exert significant will power to avoid stuffing her face with pizza.
Presumably there is a logical “AND” between you sentence parts. Depends on what do you mean by “taste really good” (see above about pizza) and by “a lot”.
People generally overeat not because the food is too yummy. People generally overeat for hormonal and psychological reasons.
What is your hypothesis for why obesity rates have exploded to such an extent in the last several decades?
Well, here’s an easy one that I’ve even got some empirical evidence for: refined sugars being added to common foods where you simply don’t expect sugars to be.
I know that when I’m here in Israel, I have an easy time controlling my eating (to the point that skipping meals sometimes becomes my default), but when I’m in the States, I have a very hard time controlling my eating. I’ve noticed that when I even partially cut refined sugars from my diet, I get through the day with a much clearer mind, particularly in the realm of executive/self-disciplining functions. It’s to the point that I’m noticeably more productive at work without refined sugar.
There are lots of differences in diet between Israel and the USA, but the single biggest background factor is that in Israel, sweets are sweets and not-sweets are not sweetened. Whereas in the US, everything but the very rawest raw ingredients (ie: including sliced bread) has some added refined sugars.
With a large background level of “derp drug” in your basic foodstuffs, it’s probably quite easy to suffer blood-sugar problems, get cravings, and lose a degree of focus and self-control. It’s certainly what I experience when I’m there.
ISTM that for me in the short run it’s the other way round, but that’s probably got to do with the fact that most of my sources of refined sugars are sources of caffeine and water as well.
Try unsweetened black tea or coffee. Seriously: it works wonders.
Oh, dear. There are what, a few dozens of books on the topic, not to mention uncountable papers and articles?
I think it’s complicated and not attributable to a single easy-to-isolate factor.
Absolutely. (And too available.)
I’ve been thinking about this question pretty intensely for a couple years now.
Where did you get the impression that I am going just by my own experiences?
Roughly what percentage of the people around you are overweight or obese? Of those who are overweight or obese, do they seem to have the urge to eat any foods or types of foods to excess?
For purposes of this exchange, I will define “taste really good” as being at the high end of “yummy.” Since you used the word “yummy” before, you presumably know what you meant.
I will define “a lot” as more than 5 million Americans.
Ok, now do you agree that there exist certain foods which (1) are considered to be very yummy by a majority of Americans; (2) which a lot of Americans have a problem with (in the sense that they have difficulty controlling their consumption of these foods); and (3) which are like an addiction (in the sense that some people feel compelled to overconsume such foods despite knowing or having received professional advice that they are consuming too much food)
Well then, you have an unusual viewpoint :-) Any evidence to support it?
Because you didn’t offer any data or other evidence. It looked just like a classic stereotype—look at all these fat Americans who can’t stop shoving pizzas into their pieholes!
10-15%, maybe?
Nope, not to my knowledge. Of course some might be wolfing down bags of cookies in the middle of the night, but I don’t know about it :-)
I will still say no because I don’t think food is addictive. But let me try to see where to do you want to get to.
Let’s take full-sugar soda, e.g. Coca-Cola. There certainly has been lots of accusatory fingers pointed at it. The majority of Americans drinks it, so I guess (1) is kinda satisfied. Do people have difficulty controlling their consumption of it? Yep, so (2) fits as well. On the other hand, these people tend to have difficulty controlling a lot of things in their lives, for example credit cards, so I’m not sure there is anything food-specific going on here. Is it like an addiction? Nope, I don’t think so. “Knowing professional advice” is way too low an incentive for people to change their ways.
Contrary opinion:
Also, while I don’t find pizza to be at all addictive, my experience is that hamburgers are very much so. I’ve had experiences where I successfully avoided eating any meat for two months in a row, then succumbed to the temptation of eating a single hamburger and then ate some several times a week for the next month.
Yes, I am aware that such exist :-)
It’s really a definitions argument, about what one can/should apply the word “addiction” to. As such it’s not very interesting, at least until it gets to connotations and consequences (e.g. if it’s an addiction, the government can regulate it or make it illegal).
It’s human to succumb to temptations. Not all temptations are addictions.
Succumbing to a temptation occasionally is one thing. But even a single case of that happening leading to a month-long relapse? That’s much more addiction-ish.
The government can regulate or ban things as public health risks which are not deemed addictions though, and things which are recognized as addictive are not necessarily regulated or banned.
All true, but if you look at it from a different side: if you want to regulate or ban something, would you rather call it an addiction or an unfortunate exercise of the freedom choice? :-)
If you’re liberal enough about what people are allowed to do, should you call anything an addiction? I’m not sure if politics connotatively hijacking scientific terminology is a good reason to change the terminology. Would you suggest something like that?
Sure. I would call things which change your personal biochemistry in the medium term (e.g. opiates) addictive. I think it’s a reasonable use of the term.
There are opiate receptors in the brain because your brain produces transmitters that bind to those receptors. You should expect certain behaviours you engage to change your personal biochemistry in various time spans as well.
A fair point. I should add probably the necessity of a positive feedback loop to the definition.
Well, the latter characterization would certainly not aid me in my attempts to get it banned, but if calling it an addiction were likely to result in semantic squabbling, I’d probably just call it a public health risk.
Interesting. I just get such consistent meat cravings that I don’t even bother trying to not eat meat. I just buy a certain amount and eat it as a basic food group.
You’re not doing it either, y’know.
I think you have now (re?)defined at least two words, super-stimulus and addictive, to fit your purposes. Tobacco doesn’t fit your definition of addictive either.
I’m neither proposing nor defending a hypothesis.
I did define “super-stimulus”, but I don’t think I tried to define “addictive” (and that’s a slippery word, often defined to suit a particular stance).
Have you read this relevant article? It’s confusing when you say you’re disagreeing with a definition, when you actually mean you’re disagreeing with the connotation.
I am not sure what are you referring to...?
Addiction is “a slippery word, often defined to suit a particular stance”.
Super-stimulus is “mostly used to demonize certain “bad” things (notably, sugar and salt) with the implication that people can’t just help themselves and so need the government (or another nanny) to step in and impose rules.”.
Sure, you finally explicitly said these things but you could have said you disagreed with the connotations in the first place, which would have made the discussion about definitions pointless and perhaps dissolved some disagreement.
I do, but I prefer to stay focused on the subject at hand.
Let’s see if I have this straight—any time someone makes a generalization about human nature without simultaneously volunteering data or other evidence, one can reasonably assume that they are engaged in the typical mind fallacy? Do I understand you correctly?
And of those 10-15%, roughly what percentage have tried to lose weight and failed?
So let’s see if I understand your position:
You deny that there are a lot of people who consume certain foods even while knowing that they are consuming too much food?
If it contradicts one’s personal experience then yes, one can reasonably assume. Subject to being corrected by evidence, of course.
I don’t know. None of them visibly yo-yos. Pretty much everyone once in a while says “I could lose a few pounds”, but it’s meaningless small talk on the order of “Weather is beastly today, eh?”
No, I don’t deny that, I just think that the word “addiction” is not the appropriate one.
Well your personal experience contradicts mine. So please try to avoid engaging in the Lumifer Typical Mind Fallacy. Thank you.
But you do know that none of them have a difficult-to-resist urge to eat certain foods or types of foods?
Well please answer the question I asked and not the question you imagine I had asked.
I asked (among other things) if there were certain foods which “are like an addiction (in the sense that some people feel compelled to overconsume such foods despite knowing or having received professional advice that they are consuming too much food)”
I was careful to say “like an addiction” and to describe what I actually meant.
So it seems you DO agree with me that there exist certain foods which (1) are considered to be very yummy by a majority of Americans; (2) which a lot of Americans have a problem with (in the sense that they have difficulty controlling their consumption of these foods); and (3) which are like an addiction (in the sense that some people feel compelled to overconsume such foods despite knowing or having received professional advice that they are consuming too much food)
Right?
Good. Do notice that, as opposed to you, I did not attempt to “make a generalization about human nature” on the basis of my personal experience.
Of course not.
I am not inclined to play fisking games (or lets-adjust-this-definition-to-split-the-hair-in-half games) on these forums. No, I do not agree with you. You have enough information to figure out how and why.
Ummm, here’s one thing you said before:
You didn’t offer any evidence or data to back this up.
It contradicts my personal experience.
Therefore you have committed the Lumifer Typical Mind Fallacy.
Please try to avoid it in the future.
Lol, then your personal experience doesn’t even contradict my basic point.
Say what? You just redefined my words so that you could answer a different question.
I asked (among other things) if you agreed that there are foods which are “like an addiction (in the sense that some people feel compelled to overconsume such foods despite knowing or having received professional advice that they are consuming too much food)”
You reinterpreted that question as though I was asking whether certain foods are addictive. So that you could easily answer “no” using your own definition of “addictive.”
Please answer the question I asked—not the question you wish or imagine I asked.
Yes, I have enough information to make a pretty good guess as to why you are evading my question.
Casomorphins in dairy have opioid effects, as does chocolate. Overconsumption of high-sugar high-fat foods alters opioid receptors in the brain. Naloxone, a drug for treating opiate overdose, is effective in reducing binging.
It also seems that food scientists specifically try to make food as addictive as possible, which seems like an expected outcome from a capitalist food market—whatever encourages the most consumption will win greater market share.
Is it an addiction on par with heroin, alcohol, or tobacco? I doubt it, but using an addiction model might be helpful in treating overeating.
Don’t have links handy but my impression is that this was tried, lots of times, and failed badly.
As to the general question of food being addictive, this is mostly an issue of how you define “addictive”. I find it useful to draw boundaries so that food (as well as, say, sex or internet) do not fall within them.
On the other hand, I don’t see a sharp divide between “food” and “drugs”. Eating certain kinds of food clearly has certain biochemical consequences.
What word would you use for people who eat so much they can’t move, get HIV from prostitutes, or play WoW with such dedication they die? These people clearly have something in common, and it’s definitely more specific than stupidity.
That is not self-evident to me.
Sick (in the medical sense, I bet their hormonal system is completely screwed up).
Regular guys with bad judgement and worse luck.
Guys who do not know their limits.
An unlucky choice of examples, I guess. Switch the question to “could brains that can’t seem to be able to regulate their behaviour to the point they’re severely damaged by it have something in common in their basic physiology that predisposes them to dysregulation when exposed to certain sensory stimuli?” This is still vague enough there’s room for evasion, so if you want to continue that way, I suppose it’s better we forget about this.
Well, as I have said several times it’s a matter of definition and how wide you want to define “addiction” is arbitrary.
Sure, you can define it as positive-feedback loops that subvert conscious control over behavior or something like that—but recall that all definitions must serve a purpose and without one there is no reason to prefer one over another. What’s the purpose here?
Note that the purpose cannot be “Can we call eating disorders addictions?” because that’s a pure definition question—however you define “addiction” will be the answer.
The purpose is to recognize harmful behaviours that people could benefit from fixing and that those behaviours might have similarities that can be exploited. If you browse porn 12 hours a day, it’s quite probable you realize you have a problem, but have significant difficulty in changing your behaviour. If you want to browse porn 12 hours a day, then that’s fine too, and nobody should try to fix you without your permission.
I don’t care what you call them, it suffices that the above purposes are fulfilled and that people understand each other.
I am highly suspicious of calling a variety of behaviors “addiction” as it implies both the lack of responsibility on the part of the subject and the justification of imposing external rules/constraints on him.
I don’t know of any successful attempts to treat obesity as if it were a true-addiction kind of disorder. One of the problems is that the classic approach to treating addiction is to isolate the addict from the addictive substance. Hard to do that with food and hard to avoid yummy stuff outside of a clinic.
Taboo responsibility.
What does this mean? That some people need bariatric surgeries to limit their eating is a pretty clear indicator they can’t control their eating. The kind of isolation rehab you’re talking about is an extreme measure even when treating drug addictions, and comprises a marginal proportion of addiction treatment.
Think nicotine replacement and varenicline for tobacco addiction or naltrexone and disulfiram for alcoholism and we’ll start to be on the same page. Note that I’m not implying these are hugely successful either. All addictions are difficult to treat.
Also certain addiction vocabulary and self awareness techniques like identifying triggers could be relevant for treating compulsive behaviour.
Or fatty.
Shouldn’t pretty much any cooked food be a super-stimulus considering the relevant ancestral environment and why we intricately cook food in the first place?
Super-stimuli could be different for different age groups. I’ve never seen anyone love plain pasta, they like their ketchup and sauce too.
According to what I read in Scientific American, the human digestive system has evolved to require cooked food; humans can’t survive on what chimpanzees and other primates eat.
Oh God! Please never utter those two words in the same sentence where an Italian can hear you. I was about to barf on the keyboard! :-)
Then again, people (other than me, at least) don’t usually binge on flat bread without toppings, either.
Are you saying that plain pasta and bread without toppings are super-stimuli for you? Are you not even using oil? :)
I can understand the bread part if it’s fresh, but as far as I’m concerned pasta doesn’t taste much like anything. Perhaps I’ve just eaten the wrong kind of bland crap.
No, I eat pasta with sauces other than ketchup. And I do eat much more plain bread than the average person e.g. when I’m at the restaurant and I’m waiting for the dishes to arrive, but I think it’s more got to do with boredom and hunger than anything else—it’s not like I have to refrain from keeping any bread at home whenever I’m trying to lose weight lest I binge on it, the way I do with cookies.
Anyway, my general point was that comparing pizza with toppings to pasta without toppings (in terms of how much people, in particular small children, enjoy them) isn’t a fair comparison.
When I was a kid, my grandmother had some trick that caused her bland spaghetti (possibly with some oils and stuff, but mostly things that weren’t visible after it was prepared) to be the best food that I knew of. If not superstimuli, then close to it.
Unfortunately she’s no longer alive, and she never passed the trick on to anyone else, so I can’t say whether I would get the same pleasure out of it as an adult.
Olive oil, lots and lots of it. Thank me later. I have been drenching food with it and getting compliments on my cooking skills for years, and I also use to say it’s a secret given my GF would freak out due to high calories. (disclaimer: I weight 260 pounds)
Do you know if it was fresh? I hear that fresh pasta is comparable to fresh bread.
No, unless I misremember terribly it was ordinary market spaghetti.
Hmm. Well, you can vary the taste by throwing salt into the pot, but I’ve never found a level of salt that I thought would raise the quality more than a point on a ten point scale. Adding spices while boiling, like powdered garlic, will alter the taste somewhat but I think they’re more effective in sauces / applied afterwards, and are often visible.
If someone wants to experiment, my starting point would be this:
Take some good olive oil (extra-virgin, first cold press, etc.) and grate fresh garlic into it. Stir and let it stand covered for an hour or so. Once your pasta is ready, drain it, and then toss with the garlic-infused olive oil.
Apparently my mother tried to make some spaghetti according to my grandmother’s instructions, but it never tasted the same to me. So either it was something really subtle, or there was a placebo effect involved (or both).
ETA: Though now that I think of it, I’m not entirely sure of the “bland” thing anymore—there might have been a sauce involved as well. Damn unreliable memories.
Interesting. Links or stories? I am very much aware of the difference between fresh-baked bread and “plastic bread” from the supermarket. It’s huge. Are people claiming freshly-made pasta is different to the same degree?
It appears not. [1] [2] [3] Fresh pasta has a more pronounced flavor, and is generally made with a superior variety of flour (that doesn’t keep as well), which means less of the flavor work is done by the sauce.
(I don’t think I’ve ever had fresh pasta, and so don’t have any first-hand reports. I do think fresh bread is worlds better than supermarket bread, though.)
Also, in America at least, making fresh pasta is a very grandmothery thing to do, and so my prior was high enough to be remarkable.
Hmm… I am getting curious. Not yet to the degree of making fresh pasta myself, but I recall that there is WholeFoods nearby that sells it...
On the other hand pasta is basically boiled wheat dough and I generally find dough as bread to be yummier than dough as pasta.
It’s ok! I’ll prepare a tomato, garlic, and basil sauce with some Merlot cooked in, stat!
I binge on (fresh) bread without toppings, but I find pasta much more enjoyable with ketchup or some sort of spice.
Yuck!
Not sure about that. Fat makes food more tasty (mostly through contributing what’s called “mouth feel”), but it doesn’t look like a super-stimulus to me.
Well, depends on how do you want to define “super-stimulus”. I understand it to mean triggering hardwired biological preferences above and beyond the usual and normal desire to eat tasty food. The two substances specifically linked to super-stimulus are sugar and salt.
Again, super-stimulus is not the same thing as yummy.
I’m not sure it’s that simple—chocolate is more of a super-stimulus than fruits for most people.
True. On the other hand, take away the sugar and see how many chocoholics are willing to eat 99% dark chocolate :-/
Dunno about 99% (though if you set the bar as low as “willing to eat” I probably would), but I do find 85% dark chocolate quite addictive (as in, I seldom manage to buy a tablet and not finish it within a couple days). But I know I’m weird.
A couple of days! :-) That’s not what “addiction” means.
I meant it in the colloquial ‘takes lots of willpower to stop’ sense, not the technical ‘once I stop I get withdrawal symptoms’ sense. (Is there a technical term for the former?)
(OK, it does seem to me that whenever I eat chocolate daily for a few weeks and then stop, I feel much grumpier for a few days, but that’s another story, and anyway it’s not like I took enough statistics to rule out it being a coincidence,)
Is there something wrong with binging or compulsion? Withdrawal symptoms would imply dependence, but not necessarily addiction.
The verb “like” and a variety of synonyms :-D
Not quite—I’m talking about the upper extreme of what Yvain here calls “wanting”, though that word in the common vernacular has strong connotations of what he calls “approving”.
I know some chocoholics. Trust me, if it takes you a couple of days to finish a chocolate bar, you’re not addicted :-D
Addiction vs physical dependence.
Ever seen a child lick butter off a slice of bread? Don’t tell me they would lick off just salt too.
I’ve seen both. In the case of salt it’s lick finger, stick it into the salt bowl, lick clean, repeat.
Ah, now that you reminded me I’ve seen the latter too, dammit.
Did our preferences mostly evolve for “tasty food” or for raw meat, fruit, vegetables, nuts etc? I thought super-stimulus usually means something that goes beyond the stimuli in the ancestral environment where the preferences for the relevant stimuli were selected for.
I don’t understand how you draw the line between stimuli and super-stimuli without such reasoning.
I guess it’s possible most our preferences evolved for cooked food, but I’d like to see the evidence first before I believe it.
ETA: I don’t think there’s necessarily anything wrong with super-stimuli, so let’s drop the baggage of that connotation.
Well, I actually don’t want to draw the line. I am not a big fan of the super-stimulus approach, though obviously humans have some built-in preferences. This terminology was mostly used to demonize certain “bad” things (notably, sugar and salt) with the implication that people can’t just help themselves and so need the government (or another nanny) to step in and impose rules.
I think a continuous axis going from disgusting to very tasty is much more useful.
Well, sure. Similarly, a continuous axis designating typical level of risk is more useful than classifying some activities as “dangerous” and others as “safe.” Which doesn’t mean there don’t exist dangerous activities.
So you disagreed with the connotation. I disagree with it too, and edited the grandparent accordingly. I still like the word though, and think it’s useful. I suppose getting exposed to certain kind of marketing could make me change my mind.
Do you still believe that fatty equals not good for you? Plus who the hell puts ketchup anywhere near pasta?
It doesn’t?
Probably depends on how much you eat it, and what kind. Let’s not oversimplify things.
No. Why would you think that?
People who torture kittens for fun. Both are an acquired taste.
I suppose I just expect from people, even intelligent people on LW.
The reverse correlation doesn’t work because I torture kittens too.