There was an article in the paper over last weekend, about the fact that for some folk, the craving for junk food is in their genes, hard-wired into their body if you like. As always with pieces like this, my first instinct is to fold my arms, nod profusely and say ‘I told you so‘ to anyone who’ll listen. Then I remember I’m over making excuses, and come back down to earth with a bump.
I’m always curious to know whether this is journalistic license, or whether the smarts who churn out these theories genuinely think it’s so, but either way you know me well enough by now to realise where I spy an opportunity to take the piss out of the more outlandish ones, I’ll take full advantage.
It’s a funny one is this though, when you think about it. There is something in the fact that your attitude, thoughts and feelings about food are kind of hardwired into you – I’m not sure it’s genetic, although I’ve definitely referred to it in the past as being part of my DNA, which boils down to the same thing – on reflection I think as something that’s at the root of my whole belief system, if it’s hard-wired anywhere, it has to be in my psyche. And I even understand why…see, all those sessions with the hookie spooky lady didn’t go to waste.
When I think back to all the food related messages I got from my mum in my formative years, they all involved eating everything on my plate, leave stuff and there’ll be no pudding (which as a two year old with a sweet tooth was the equivalent of my world ending) not to mention the starving children in Africa who would be grateful for the meal I might be trying to get out of eating. K mentioned on the blog last Saturday that she’d had similar emotionally driven messages from her Grandfather…I think we’ve all been there.
And my mum’s answer to anything from a skinned knee to a fall-out with a friend involved eating something to make me feel better so again, it’s how I learned to cope with anything that hurt. I’m not blaming my mum per se…there comes a point as an adult where you take responsibility for your own shit you know? All I’m saying is that if I’d grown up hearing you can have some of that but too much of it is bad for you, or food is the fuel that makes your body work but make sure you only eat ’till you’re full, the stuff baked into my psyche might have been slightly less destructive than it’s turned out to be.
There was a great response to the article from a bloke in the states which I took the liberty of pinching to share with you…
“I am hardwired to want fat and sugar, (really, who isn’t?) but I developed my own software (willpower) to govern it. The more you use your software, the easier it becomes.”
He’s not wrong! That is such a great way of looking at it I was compelled to adopt it immediately. A tekkie friend of mine once told me that software was the bit you plugged into the hardware to make the hardware do what you wanted it to do. So that being the case, no matter how far down in my roots those beliefs reside, I have the software to re-programme them, and so do you.
Anyone seen the manual lying around..?
Oops, I am sure computers can smell fear. I think my tablet has reponded to my ineptitude by blocking access to Comments on your posts. This topic made me chip in my 2 cents, but they may have bounced thru a crack in the tabletop.
Did I write to you (& all and sundry) yesterday, to say:
I thought that tame expert went wide of the mark, when he used the word “willpower.”
I don’t lay claim to any genetic markers… if there be psychological or behavioral hard-wiring, i don’t pretend to know it – (hell, i wouldn’t know one constructive thing to do with it). All I can say is that for the time being, I’m working on my life-long weight problem, using every strategy, every life line, any comradeship & self-awareness available. It isn’t that i lack moral fiber, Self Control, Will Power. My apparent character flaw will no longer be a convenient way to dismiss this fat lady.
Thanks again, Fleury Knox
Hey you…I don’t know where your comment ended up! My spam filter does get a little over-excited from time to time but I check it daily to make sure it hasn’t bounced any of my proper people…only the ones offering to make my willy grow bigger or to sell me other less exciting services!!
Oh-oh, red faced: my screed & everyone else’s comments promptly appeared. I’d better call up one of Honey’s grown-up offspring, have them retrain me & reset something on this gizmo (husb & i lean shamelessly on them, lacking any preteens at home).
Wow, I don’t regret snivelling (“Hey! I didn’t get any!?!”) – This is good stuff! F
Yes, all the good stuff happens in the thoughts threads!! D x
I definitely think we are “wired” to think about food and consume food in such a way that we were raised. Look at skinny people and you typically see a skinny family heritage. Look at heavy people and you see the same thing. I do think the whole, “clean your plate” and “you deserve this treat” thinking came from my upbringing. We always ate foods rich in fat and lots of carbs, so my nutrition was never really healthy. I had to relearn how to eat, and i continue to struggle with the battle of the mind. It’s all about what I think about food and how I address that. I have more power over that than any “hardwiring.” It’s good to have the realization to at least acknowledge where these ideas are coming from so you can work harder to deal with them. But it’s not good to say, “oh well, too bad for me, that’s the way I am.” I mean, that’s really a cop out.
It is indeed. I like to regard myself as a work in progress!
Of course we are hard-wired to want to eat and store fat to get us through times of famine, it’s how our ancestors survived hard times. We don’t need that wiring any more. It’s very difficult to turn it off, though, but it can be done. Never give up!
Never Mimi…never in a month of Sundays 🙂
I try not to read those kinds of articles anymore, they give me fodder for my excuses LOL. But yes, willpower is the yellow brick road to skinny town 🙂
Isn’t it ever…shame it’s an elusive bugger at times eh?!
Hi, all. First, i’m still beaming out hugs to all the Posse that i feel i’m coming to know, here. May God keep you safe.
I love that, Software. But… The canny, soft leetle gray cells can be employed in not surrendering myself to cravings for comfort, cravings for oblivion, disastrous liaisons with food. It’s been the task of my life to noodle out the problem, collect strategies, listen to science & experience & sift sift sift! Try to change what doesn’t work for me, & practice practice practice.
See, whether it ‘s food addiction, or EARLY, thorough indoctrination absolutely bound into psychological warp & weft, nothing we would breezily term Will Power is able to simply dispose of it.
‘Just use your self-control,’ says the Shitbird in my head. ‘Just say no.’ ‘If you didn’t have that character defect you wouldn’t be fat.’
Take good care, FleuryKnox
You’re not wrong lovely…if I expand the analogy I think the Asshole in my mind is the virus on the software I plug into the hardware 🙂 as you rightly point out, if just saying no was so easy, Skinny Town would be very overcrowded indeed! D x