Kristen Gyles | Food is the new crack

In recent times, I have sat three difficult professional exams, each of which required months of rigorous study. Each time, after sitting the exam, I went straight from the exam centre to a restaurant, sat down and got myself a nice big meal. Something novel and out-of-the-ordinary that would make my tastebuds jump. After working so hard for so many months, it was only right that I reward myself.

This little routine got me thinking about all the other ways I reward myself for hard work. It is always with food. And, frankly, I don’t need to do much to earn the right to tickle my taste buds. Occasionally, if the day is long and hard enough, I can rationalise buying myself some Belgian chocolate ice cream or some other sweet treat. That is, I suppose, to reward myself for making it to the end of the day. So, in essence, I have been using food as a reward system. Many people do.

Think about every celebration or celebratory activity that you’ve ever engaged in. For many of us, there’s always food involved. We have been socialised to associate food with a good time. So, food must be the main act of birthday parties, anniversary celebrations, housewarming events, baby showers, bridal showers and even just casual meet-ups with friends. Food is always the highlight. It is never good enough to simply enjoy the company of family and friends or to do something fun together. And inviting people to your event without copious amounts of food to go around definitely doesn’t cut it.

WHAT WE EAT

We need food for survival. Eating is a good thing. So, this isn’t about inducing any kind of shame around eating. But what and why we eat is important. There’s nothing wrong with including food in celebrations, but celebratory events almost always feature the unhealthiest types of foods – beers, rum, sweet drinks, deep-fried stuff and lots of highly processed snacks like chips and dips. The worst part is that these are the kinds of food that we are most likely to overindulge in. Hardly anybody binges on celery sticks or brown rice.

This conversation becomes increasingly relevant, given the growth of something called food addiction. Food addiction is a pattern of compulsive eating where an individual obsesses over certain highly palatable foods they find pleasurable. This type of addiction seriously distorts the brain’s reward system, much like drug addiction does. So, people who suffer from food addiction eat, not because they are hungry or because they need fuel, but to get a ‘high’ from all the processed sugars, fats and seasonings that have drenched the food – some of which are chemically designed to keep us wanting more.

One 2025 study directed by the University of Michigan suggests that roughly 12 per cent of older American adults (50 and older) battle ultra-processed food addiction. The study focused on this age group because they would have been children or adolescents in the 1970s and 1980s when an influx of ultra-processed foods was introduced into the US food supply. However, preliminary research seems to suggest younger generations are coping no better with addiction to ultra-processed food.

UNHEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS

Life in the Western Hemisphere has normalised unhealthy relationships with food. Subconsciously, we have learnt to rely on food to regulate our emotional state and mood in general, moment by moment. Notice how, when we are sad or disappointed, it’s a nice big meal that cheers us up? Yet, when we are happy, we also need to celebrate by eating food? Food has literally become the centre of our lives.

Such a chronic obsession with food as entertainment stems from a mental and emotional state of dependence on food as a reward system. The only way the obsession can be broken is through a re-engineering of the mind. We can remind ourselves that food is not entertainment and while food should taste good, it shouldn’t consume 90 per cent of our thoughts.

This all might not seem like a big deal, but it is. Food addiction is highly prevalent in people who struggle with obesity, for obvious reasons. But, even for those who are not overweight, the weird wiring of the brain that makes us look at food as a reward is exactly what derails many of our personal goals. Imagine coming from the gym and rewarding yourself with … a three-piece chicken combo. Kind of pointless, right?

Since we are in the era of new year’s resolutions, it is a good time to think about how often we “feel fi supm nice” and whether we have a problem we need to address. Indulging in something high in processed sugar or fat every now and again won’t send anyone into immediate cardiac arrest. But, if this is an everyday type of thing, maybe an intervention is in order.

This intervention won’t happen overnight but a good first step is to become more aware of the types of food that we indulge in, in moments of heightened emotion. A home-made cashew cheesecake might still feel like a treat but will definitely treat the mind and body better than the chocolate cheesecake slice from the pastry shop. And, if you want to reward yourself after a long day of hard work, pause and think about whether food will really make you feel better when it’s really rest that you need.

Kristen Gyles is a free-thinking public affairs opinionator. Send feedback to kristengyles@gmail.com and columns@gleanerjm.com.