(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
There are complex reasons why people weigh more than they should medically. What one knows is that there are major differences in how people experience hunger and satiety. One person may feel a strong sense of satiety, while another person hardly knows that the food is eaten. Some people experience hunger as a barely felt void, while others experience hunger as severe discomfort, pain or anxiety.
Exactly what is a nuisance, and what is the result of life, is not easy to point out. But as with all addiction problems, genetics are likely to be important. Some of us experience from the nature of hunger strong than others. For us who feel that way, the craving for food will be much stronger than for people who barely know hunger but who feel satiety.
Another bodily function also comes into play, the body's need for reward. The brain's reward center is closely linked to the brain's center of stress and anxiety. When the reward sets in, stress, fear and anxiety will decrease. For most, this reward feature will occur after a good workout, after sex, or after a good performance at work. For some of us, these mechanisms are put in extra strong after good food, with strong bodily feelings of calm, harmony and happiness as a result. Physical emotions are individual, none of us really know how others experience their body. Eating too much unhealthy food is not perceived as greed or gratification for many overweight people. It is perceived as vital.
Liquor and Jesus. But why, many would say, why is it that it is only in recent years that we have had an obesity epidemic? Part of the answer, of course, is that most people move less today than before. Most of us have a car, the phone is ready in the hand, the dishes wash themselves, and so on.
Let me further answer with a counter-question. In the 1800th century, southwestern Norway was not known as a Bible belt, but as an alcoholism belt. People drank from the farm and land. Why did so many in the Southwest drink so hard then, and not today? The answer lies in three facts. One of them is accessibility. The coast had quick access to goods from the outside world – it was easy to get the spirit. Another fact is that they lacked the culture and structures to meet alcohol. This was gradually worked up. Thanks to the cooperation between the labor movement and low- and free-church movements in Norway, we have had strict regulations on alcohol – and it helped. And here the third and final point creeps in: faith in God. Life along the coast was no game, people stroked the sea, times were hard and unpredictable. The bottle gave reward, calm, security. Jesus eventually gave the same, and the bottle disappeared.
The social competition. The parallels to the obesity epidemic are striking. The availability of unhealthy foods has changed dramatically, and the possibilities have increased. People have better advice today than before. The shops front sales of chocolate plates that are five times larger than the large chocolate plates that existed when I was a child. Meat has become everyday food.
Eating too much unhealthy food is not perceived as greed or gluttony for many overweight people. It is perceived as vital.
Another thing is the understanding that society is stressful at the moment. We have time constraints, we have performance pressure and we have burnout. Different people experience stress differently – depending on where they are in the hierarchy, how they are genetically linked, and how life has treated them. People also respond differently to stress. For many, stress triggers food cravings.
Nor do we have a great, unifying divine narrative to lean on. The eternal afterlife has been replaced by a social competition to live the longest, healthiest and healthiest. A requirement that in turn can be perceived as stressful for people who are struggling to live a healthy life.
Pain softener. So what can we do to improve the situation? First, we can do something with our culture around food. Be aware that different people respond differently to food and hunger, and remove the taboos around this.
We must also stop spreading shame and guilt around obesity. Shame and guilt have only one function: uneasy pain. And where will we who are predisposed to obesity look for rewards to soothe this pain? I mat.
