I imagine everybody here works hard you know we all have these exhausting days where we get home just feeling very worn out but on these tiring days how many of you have tooken the edge off with a comfort food you know the foods that just make you feel better Maybe it's cookies chips chocolate soda fast food you can call all picture your favourite but why do these suits make us feel better you know isn't the point of eating to meet your clerk need so you know have enough energy for the day but how many of you have been able to eat your favourite treat on a full stomach it's pretty easy, even if you feel regret during every single bite you were very compelled to do it and you know you are probably gonna do it again.
The next time that is served at least i will but have you ever tried doing, this with a food you find reallu bland you can't i mean at least you dont want to why is this we all know we have all heard of the phrase this tastes so good it's like crack what a fight what if i told you that idea may not be so far off at least for some people, i mean we all know we could we can became addicted to things like cigarettes alcohol and painkillers what if i told you that food could be addictive at least for some people and it could significantly be contributing to the obesity epidemic in our modern society so currently in 2015 the CDC reported that in the united states 40 % of adults are obese and 71 percent are overweight six hundred and thirty thousand Americans died of heart disease and one in three individuals i are either pre diabetic or already have diabetes.
This has an incredible economic impact in our society in 2008 it was estimated that obesity related costs totaled a hundred and fort seven billion dollars so this affects every single one of us i believe one of the central problems, that drives obesity in our society is the current food climate that created the foods that cause us to ignore our full stomachs and eat, we can cure health complications these foods are very powerful and they give us a lot of motivation to consume so much, so that in many people that can actually cause addictive like behaviour so currently it's estimated that 25 percent of obese individuals show significant signs of food addiction this is measured by they yale food addiction scale.
Which is a tool that was developed to detect signs of substance abuse from consuming highly palatable food now i am uses term a lot highly palatable food, is food at a really high in salt sugar and fat and importantly these foods typically are not really found in nature, and so this yellow food addiction scale has been used in many studies to show that many aspects, of food addiction mirrored drug addiction so for example in per tori and colleagues found that when they image the brains of individuals that showed 3 or more symptoms of food addiction according to the oh food addiction scale they had changes in specific brain regions thay were similar to other participants with other addictive disorders a different study.
By gerhart and colleagues found that when participants consumed a milkshake those with a higher score on the oh food. Adduction scale showed greater activation in areas of the brain related to reward which is also seen with addictive drugs so these are just two examples demonstrating that research has been able to show that there is a lot of overlap between spefic areas of the brain between addictive drugs and the consumption of highly palatable food which again are these foods that are really high in salt sugar and fat so we can even look and find more examples of how food addiction mirrors drug addiction, we know that when someone addicted to drug stops taken and they go through withdrawal to many common symptoms of withdrawal.
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