By Michael J. Critelli | MakeUsWell Newsletter, 

We live in a culture flooded with nutritional advice—count your carbs, eliminate sugar, intermittently fast, go keto, eat Mediterranean. Yet, despite all the noise, many people still struggle with food choices. They feel caught in a cycle of discipline and relapse, shame and overcorrection. What if the problem isn’t just about what we eat—but how we think about eating in the first place?

Ultimately, having a healthy relationship with food and putting it into its proper place in our lives is the one unifying strand among all the different factors that cause us to eat too much or eat the wrong things. That’s where the “Inner Game” philosophy might come into play.

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by Mike Critelli, 

Our recent blogs have focused on food and beverage additives and preservatives and their role in creating and enhancing cravings, as well as economic, merchandising, social, and psychological causes of nutritional decisions.

An increasing number of Americans understand this, but most do not realize that the first line of attack for improving healthy nutrition starts at the farm or the pasture. The healthiness of produce, meat, dairy products, and grains is heavily influenced by:

• Seeds

• Soils

• Environmental conditions

• Chemicals used in agricultural processes

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by Mike Critelli, 

Although it is not the primary cause of obesity, the differences between what and why we consume sweet treats during holidays and at other celebratory events is symptomatic of a much deeper societal issue.

Our lives would not be the same without birthday cakes, Thanksgiving pies, Christmas cookies, or chocolates shared with loved ones on Valentine’s Day or as a treat shared when we eat a chocolate Easter bunny. What would weddings be like if the bride and groom did not cut the wedding cake and serve it to guests? How do we rethink what we do for all these special occasions?

The link between sweet treats and holiday celebrations dates back far before our country’s founding and appears in many countries and cultures. Getting rid of unhealthy sweet treats on these special occasions is not realistic or even desirable.

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by Mike Critelli, 

For a sizable part of the global population that has enough money to buy healthy foods and beverages, but chooses to eat unhealthy foods and beverages, one motivation is the way we have been wired to link unhealthy foods and beverages with positive emotions.

We will explore one of them today: “comfort.” Next week, we will explore the link between foods and celebratory occasions.

The Comfort Response

When we are stressed out, we often are induced to eat unhealthy and junky food which either we or a person offering it to us calls “comfort food.”

This is not a new phenomenon and it actually was not linked to food a few generations ago. Our parents and grandparents often pursued comfort and calm through an alcoholic beverage before, during or after dinner every day. In many households in the 1950’s and 1960’s, supposedly the golden age of American life, adults felt a need to drink an alcoholic beverage to calm their nerves after what routinely was a stressful work environment or, in the case of stay-at-home moms, a stressful day at home.

Some took tranquilizers or pain killers to deal with the physiological effects of stress. A scan of 1950’s advertising shows that even cigarettes were marketed as stress relievers and that some doctors were heavy tobacco users.

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by Mike Critelli, 

Information Alone Is Not Enough

One of the challenges that has been top of mind to us as we build this browser-based AI-driven product is how to make it as effective as possible as it provides information and advice to users.

The mistake public health officials, the media, employers, educators, and many other leaders have repeatedly made is to assume that their job ends when they convey information about how we should act to maximize health.

We know from our personal and social experiences that even when family, friends, and other social influences are urging us to do the right thing, we fail to do so.

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