Cravings for food are desires, not needs.
They do drive appetite,
which make life difficult when one is drooling.
Desires come in a number of types,
terminal, and instrumental.
They can be logical - rational,
or emotional based.
Eating is a conditioned response
that becomes habitual, aka unconscious.
Advertising raises emotional desires,
which in turn raise appetite.
Now lets try to straighten this spaghetti.
This is trying to put
David Kessler work on why we eat
together with On Desire by William Irvine.
So when I see food, and it is available to me
I have a hedonic emotional terminal desire to eat.
Emotional hedonic terminal desires are the
strongest desires, the largest dopamine response.
If I eat, it (did) or would develop into a habit.
So I have become habituated
or conditioned to eating,
wanting to eat, desiring to eat
when I see food (cue), and it is available.
Pavlov's dogs come to mind
So what are the treatment options.
I am now aware that it is an
irrational emotional terminal desire
and should be ignored.
The ultimate human purpose
is to work from irrational emotions
toward reason and rational actions.
Is that enough?
"Cravings for food are desires," and sometimes not easy to ignore.
ReplyDeleteAre we conditioned to eat three meals a day? Some eat five smaller meals a day. When on shift work eating 'patterns' are not easy and can add to an UN-satisfactory state.
Never easy but we we must try to do what is best for us and our health.
All the best Jan
That reminds me of the Shangri-La diet. The author (Seth Roberts) has a theory on why it works, but it seems to be a form of deconditioning, by separating the orosensory stimulation from the arrival of nutrients. Have you ever tried it?
ReplyDeleteHi Valerie:
ReplyDeleteYes, I tried drinking oil/sugar emulsion. For me it did nothing.
Kessler goes on to explain the reward circuits. Breaking down desires also seens to help more. I am one of kessler's phenotype.