Healthy food is absolutely not a luxury item. I’ll accept the argument that the time to prepare healthy food is a luxury, but in almost every corner of the US you will find basic ingredients (eg rice, beans, carrots, celery, corn, potatoes, pasta) are way less expensive than the pre-prepared slop in boxes in the middle aisles of the store. People are addicted to that sugary shit and actively choose it
Addiction is the inability to stop doing something.
With the acknowledgement that addiction is a disease, what’s happening is a part of the brain cannot stop choosing to do something, for a variety of legitimate chemical and habitual reasons
Lol yes. Choice has meaning. Choice here being dictated by compulsive behavior, or dominant chemical signaling is still choice. Like, your brain is doing it. Choice is not just “what color shirt will I wear today”, it is far deeper.
I’m not victim blaming or trying to fuck with you, I am focusing on the fact that words have meaning, and choice isn’t just a surface level, front brain thing. Choice is integral to the human condition, and choice and addiction are bedfellows. The latter dominating the former.
How is choosing to buy a sugared drink instead of water the same as playing a game of chess against a grandmaster? What exactly about it makes your analogy fit?
Information: does an individual know chess rules? Openings? En passant? Do they want to spend the time and effort to learn? Are they getting their info from reliable sources or are they learning bongcloud and knooks?
Difference in skill level: the food and diet industries have thousands of specialists on their side with experience in psychology, advertisement, economics, lobbying, etc. Grandmasters can set up traps that new like a good idea to their opponent while thinking 10 steps ahead.
Complexity: chess and diet are not a single choice, but a series of choices, some of which make later moves more difficult.
Effort: it takes a long time to learn enough to even put up a decent resistance to a grandmaster, let alone win. It’s more than I’d care to put in. I don’t want to think about chess all the time. That’s called a chessing disorder.
almost every corner of the US you will find basic ingredients (eg rice, beans, carrots, celery, corn, potatoes, pasta) are way less expensive than the pre-prepared slop in boxes
However, a number of studies suggest that poor health in “food deserts” is primarily caused by differences in demand for healthy food, rather than differences in availability.
First of all, that’s one “devils advocate however” in an article full of information to the contrary.
Second of all, I’d be interested in seeing who funded those studies. Lobbying groups for different unhealthy foods as well as grocery stores looking for excuses to not cater to poor people often fund junk studies that say exactly what they want them to. Just like Big Tobacco did and political groups still do.
Third, addiction still ≠ choice and sugar is more addictive than most narcotics.
Just on your last point, sugar is not more addictive than narcotics. That’s complete bunk. Provide a primary source for that claim if you want to refute me, but all those headlines about that topic were sensational and were basically based on sugar lighting up the same part of the brain as narcotics, namely the pleasure areas. So we like them both, but that has no bearing on addictiveness.
I was also reading an article about nutritional quality of food itself has been declining over the last 50 years. So to get the same nutritional amount, you need to eat more food period.
There’s also bigger systemic issues about food access that is driving people to “choose” it. Lack of time, cost, availability, transportation all factor in that are beyond a simple idea if a person having a pure choice between two equal (or even somewhat equal) options.
Many people in the US also live in food deserts where easy access to healthy food IS a luxuary due to simply not being able to buy it where they live or work.
Healthy food is absolutely not a luxury item. I’ll accept the argument that the time to prepare healthy food is a luxury, but in almost every corner of the US you will find basic ingredients (eg rice, beans, carrots, celery, corn, potatoes, pasta) are way less expensive than the pre-prepared slop in boxes in the middle aisles of the store. People are addicted to that sugary shit and actively choose it
You just used addicted and choose it in the same sentence.
I don’t think those are mutually exclusive. However, it takes energy and willpower to make a choice that goes against the nature of the addiction.
Addiction means you have a strong impulse for it, but at the end of the day you’re still choosing.
That is not, at all, the meeting of addicted.
Addiction is the inability to stop doing something.
With the acknowledgement that addiction is a disease, what’s happening is a part of the brain cannot stop choosing to do something, for a variety of legitimate chemical and habitual reasons
“Cannot stop choosing”
Come on.
You choose to walk a direction, you choose to look out a window. Choice is a critical component of being human.
Addiction is the chemical overriding of the prioritization of choice.
"compulsively committed or helplessly drawn to a practice or habit or to something psychologically or physically habit-forming "
Again: “compulsively” “helplessly”.
Look, if you’re not interested in admitting that words have meaning, you’re not arguing in good faith and I’m done with you. Have a good one.
Lol yes. Choice has meaning. Choice here being dictated by compulsive behavior, or dominant chemical signaling is still choice. Like, your brain is doing it. Choice is not just “what color shirt will I wear today”, it is far deeper.
I’m not victim blaming or trying to fuck with you, I am focusing on the fact that words have meaning, and choice isn’t just a surface level, front brain thing. Choice is integral to the human condition, and choice and addiction are bedfellows. The latter dominating the former.
“People are addicted” and “actively choose it” are contradictory statements. Addiction is a disease, not a personal failing.
I’d only refute the "active"part.
You physically choose to locomote towards the counter to make the purchase, you physically choose to lift the cup to your mouth.
The problem is your own mind is working against you to make that physical choice seem absolutely mandatory, via the importance of chemical signaling
Agree it’s a disease, but it’s also a choice. You choose to buy a big gulp when you crave it.
That’s like saying losing chess against a grandmaster is a choice because you pick where the pieces go.
How is choosing to buy a sugared drink instead of water the same as playing a game of chess against a grandmaster? What exactly about it makes your analogy fit?
Here’s a few ways:
Information: does an individual know chess rules? Openings? En passant? Do they want to spend the time and effort to learn? Are they getting their info from reliable sources or are they learning bongcloud and knooks?
Difference in skill level: the food and diet industries have thousands of specialists on their side with experience in psychology, advertisement, economics, lobbying, etc. Grandmasters can set up traps that new like a good idea to their opponent while thinking 10 steps ahead.
Complexity: chess and diet are not a single choice, but a series of choices, some of which make later moves more difficult.
Effort: it takes a long time to learn enough to even put up a decent resistance to a grandmaster, let alone win. It’s more than I’d care to put in. I don’t want to think about chess all the time. That’s called a chessing disorder.
They still are choosing sugar?
I’m addicted to nicotine and I actively choose to hit my vape, for example.
I know about the uk but not USA. Food inequality is quite a big problem for low-income households.
https://www.turn2us.org.uk/T2UWebsite/media/Documents/Communications documents/Living-Without-Report-Final-Web.pdf
(Millions of Britons live without a freezer or oven)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8976549/
(A large number of britons who dont own a car live over a mile from an outlet selling healthy food)
Etc
Someone never heard about food deserts.
Way to victim-blame both addicts and people with little to no healthy choices available.
Low healthy food demand == choosing sugar
First of all, that’s one “devils advocate however” in an article full of information to the contrary.
Second of all, I’d be interested in seeing who funded those studies. Lobbying groups for different unhealthy foods as well as grocery stores looking for excuses to not cater to poor people often fund junk studies that say exactly what they want them to. Just like Big Tobacco did and political groups still do.
Third, addiction still ≠ choice and sugar is more addictive than most narcotics.
Just on your last point, sugar is not more addictive than narcotics. That’s complete bunk. Provide a primary source for that claim if you want to refute me, but all those headlines about that topic were sensational and were basically based on sugar lighting up the same part of the brain as narcotics, namely the pleasure areas. So we like them both, but that has no bearing on addictiveness.
I was also reading an article about nutritional quality of food itself has been declining over the last 50 years. So to get the same nutritional amount, you need to eat more food period.
There’s also bigger systemic issues about food access that is driving people to “choose” it. Lack of time, cost, availability, transportation all factor in that are beyond a simple idea if a person having a pure choice between two equal (or even somewhat equal) options.
Totally agree with this
Many people in the US also live in food deserts where easy access to healthy food IS a luxuary due to simply not being able to buy it where they live or work.
“potatoes and rice and corn and pasta” HEALTHY INGREDIENTS