Of Weight Issues

I was linked to this article from another blog. An excellent read. It is able to explain why fast food has been so successful and addictive. It also makes me rethink about eating fast food. Sure, it's cheap, quick and readily available, what's not to like. But, if we continue to indulge without care or control of our weight, health problems will come all together at once before you can even sense it. I also realized that I'm quite a fast eater and sometimes do not chew my food too much. This probably explains why my weight can go up when I stop exercising. Perhaps the root cause is my laziness in chewing.

Some of the key points which I took and summarized from the article:

In many countries, obesity is becoming a serious problem

• Widening of 'Heavy-Thin Gap'
• Overweight people were becoming more overweight

"Higher sugar, fat and salt make you want to eat more."

• Sugar, fat and salt make a food compelling. They stimulate neurons and makes us want to eat more. 
• Sugar, fat and salt are either loaded into a core ingredient (such as meat, vegetables, potato or bread), layered on top of it, or both.
• fast food chains serve food with more fat, sugar and salt

Eliminating our need to chew before swallowing

• Americans typically chewed food up to 25 times before it was swallowed; now the average American chews 10 times.
• The key is to create foods with just enough chew – but not too much. Foods that slip down don't leave us with a sense of being well fed. In making food disappear so swiftly, fat and sugar only leave us wanting more.

Available at any time and anywhere

• Make enticing food easily and constantly available, keep it novel, and people will keep coming back for more. With food available in almost any setting, "the number of cues, the number of opportunities" to eat have increased, while the barriers to consumption have fallen