A few years ago, I attended a two-day panel in Washington, D.C. sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The topic of our group, a collection of scholars from various academic disciplines: America’s obesity epidemic.
We discussed issues that every student would expect—exercise patterns, school lunches, car culture, television and other electronic media consumption, homework, advertising, food deserts, and more. Related to all this and of particular interest was another topic: junk food.
As Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart put it pornographyMost of us can’t define junk food, but we know it when we see it. Junk food – a term that became popular in the 1970s – is typically high in sugar, unhealthy fats and sodium. It is low in dietary fiber and essential vitamins and minerals. Usually, it contains additives that extend its shelf life and impart pleasant flavors.
There is hardly a person who does not consume large amounts of canned sodas, energy drinks, chips, pizza, candy, and “food” from fast food vendors. For many Americans, eating is essentially a pit stop, a moment of relief and energy before getting back on the road. The ideal life, so many of us believe, is one where we eat “out” as often as possible. This avoids unnecessary food preparation and cleanup. If we have to eat at home, at least let it be delivered by a company or be lazy.
Of course, there are biochemical factors in this behavior. Consuming large amounts of junk food is high in sugar and fat dopamine in the brain. Those spikes of dopamine produce short bursts of pleasure. However, excessive consumption of such foods reduces the sensitivity of dopamine receptors, making it more difficult to feel satisfied at lower doses. Ignoring healthier options, we crave brightly packaged snacks. We don’t understand why.
Do other parts of modern culture compel us to behave this way? Are we addicted to the emotional impulses of our consumer society?
A failed culture
Few of us appreciate preferred snacks or fast food brands, which are called junk. We also don’t accept the idea that our urges and desires—certainly feelings we can resist whenever we want—are compulsions or, worse, addictions. Even less do we like to think that some of our favorite activities are unhealthy habits that provide short-term thrills and little else. Yes, many of us gamble – especially now, sports betting. Hours spent watching pornography can’t be good. Young people especially should not be playing all these video games and playing endlessly on their phones. Inevitably, the enthusiasm of others is questionable; We are under control.
However, let’s look at some parallels between our eating habits and other forms of behavior.
to escape Therapist Lance Dodds believes that addictive behavior may be less about finding pleasure than it is about escaping from a normal world that someone finds depressing, dangerous, or otherwise unsatisfying. Addictive behaviors allow for alternative self-concepts. The fact that others may resent this exotic identity can add to the sense of difference and freedom.
Just as we know that eating a liter of ice cream or eating a bag of chips is not good for us, so we feel that our nightly escapades on the mobile phone or computer are too much. Usually, deviance is defiance. Our culture expects some of this behavior in defiance teenagers; the rest of us must ask why we feel the need to run away from ourselves.
End the fun. Most of us say we really enjoy pop, which both completes and rewards our behavior. However, and just like eating that extra potato chip or popcorn kernel, satisfaction doesn’t feel complete. We need more, maybe a few more hits.
Some species operate with physiologically based “needs” that may be sufficient. People have psychologically induced patterns of “wanting” that resist easy fulfillment. We want things, sometimes desperately, but achievements usually do not fulfill us. Maybe the goal we achieved was not really what we wanted. A negative culture exacerbates this anxiety because it has end-states that are very specific (like a winning bet) but essentially artificial. Raises them goals-and shares to participate. The activity becomes like a game, with stages of success, but no definitive solution.
The thrill of the process. It would be wrong to think that we are dealing with it compulsive behavior just for fun at the end. Alternatively, and again like play, we can become interested in the activity itself. It includes its setting (perhaps a nightclub or a motel room), an amazing cast of characters, strange equipment and rules, and unusual sights, sounds, and smells. In addition, there is usually a sense of danger and difficulty. Like gamblers, we make choices. We believe that we can hold our own among the forces that oppose us. Sometimes we risk the economic and social position of our ordinary life. Pleasure, we understand, is something we must acquire or “buy.”
False Play / False Communication
A scholar of human play, I have written extensively on this blog and elsewhere about the importance of this “way of acting” in our lives. At its best, the game is self-expanding. It creates challenging environments, develops skills, explores emotions and fosters new relationships. Freed from mundane reactions, players create and think about life’s possibilities.
However, the game can be too narrowly designed and reduced in its life-building benefits. By focusing too much on the achievement of the ultimate goal or pleasure, players can overlook the joy of the process itself, which is really the point of the activity. The game can be organized by external forces that govern the terms of human involvement, until participation is only a technically oriented mode. Everyone learns how to play. Worse, people feel compelled to play by others or by themselves. Repetition trumps spontaneity, such as “binging.” Such is the game of lies.
Of course, our favorite, if somewhat compulsive, behaviors are also ways of connecting to the world. This process of baptism and joining is what I call “unification.” Isn’t that what we learn when we visit websites Social media pages, play and play video games for hours? Are we not appreciating what the world has to offer and learning about ourselves in the process?
Again, communication at its best teaches us the meaning of attraction and respect for others. This shows that we are not alone in the universe. However, we must always ask what we are connecting to and how we are doing it.
False communication is identifying with social and cultural forces that effectively undermine rather than elevate oneself. Our consumer society presents images of shiny objects, places, people and lifestyles. We want to “belong” to these worlds. We want the emotions and statuses that they say. But images are usually lonely. The people we meet don’t care about us if they are really real people. We want proximity and commitment from something that cannot answer our desire. The lack of social substance is the essence of waste culture.
