Realfooding and its 3 psychological enemies

Realfooding is a movement that fights to reinstate healthy eating in the general population.

Your method is the dissemination of sufficient knowledge so that people can take and properly manage their diet.

Healthy eating for Realfooding It is based on "real" food, "life" food, food offered by mother nature.

Realfooding's unhealthy food is based on ultraprocessed, food prepared by the food industry. Even so, it differs between "good prosecuted" and "bad prosecuted", although real food is always prioritized.

This topic is very interesting, although not so simple to explain without deepening, so I invite interested people to look for more information about it.

Content

• Why is Realfooding?
• What is psychonutrition?
• Does food addiction exist? Why does it cost us so much to eat healthy?
• The 3 psychological enemies of Realfooding
  • 1. The brain reward system
    • a) Hyperactivation
    • b) Neuroimagen and food addiction
    • c) Anticipatory pleasure
  • 2. The obesogenic atmosphere
    • a) Personal atmosphere
    • b) Social and cultural environment
  • 3. Our learning system
• Guilt vs responsibility

Why is Realfooding?

At present, there is a reasonable concern for health problems that are a consequence of poor diet.

Obesity has become a pandemic that increases every year. The figures are alarming, both in adults and in child population and the diseases associated with it are 30% of health expenditure due to cardiovascular diseases, type II diabetes or cancer. These diseases often become chronicles, worsening the quality of life of those who suffer them without a return path.

What is psychonutrition?

In this article we will focus on what are the psychological enemies of Realfooding, to understand why it is not so simple and psychology, the so -called psychonutrition.

Know what to eat is vital and fundamental, and more in specific populations such as athletes, now, knowing what to eat is not enough.

Take note:

Success = Know how to feed you + (want + power) * Perform food change

*Psychology and psychonutrition enters here.

Does food addiction exist? Why does it cost us so much to eat healthy?

While it is true that misinformation is incredible and this movement is achieving great changes around food, lNutritional information is not everything.

In the background there are things that we all know, as I always say, we all know that it is healthier to eat an apple than a donut and yet Donut.

This might resemble the smoker who knows the risks of tobacco, well known and disseminated by the health authorities and, even so, tobacco remains in the street, not as something anecdotal, but in a much more frequent way than would be desirable.

With tobacco we assume addiction. Nicotine has addictive substances that hook us physiologically and therefore it becomes very difficult to escape its use once we are "hooked".

What happens to food? Is the same? Thanks to new technologies, there are every time studies, for example, through functional magnetic resonance, which reveal a hidden reality: food may not be as innocent as it seems.

There is still no firm response about whether food addiction exists literally, although what we know is that not the whole solution is in the power of nutritional information, our brain has a lot to do with this process.

The 3 psychological enemies of Realfooding

1. The brain reward system

We have the enemy at home, in our head. And our brain plays us against feeding.

The human brain has a reward system against food as a survival function. Food should like our energy source.

Imagine that the human being would have not shown interest in eating, we would be extinct millions of years ago! Therefore, our physiology has been responsible for us to eat through biochemical reinforcers that cause us pleasure in ingesting food.

The neurotransmitter mainly in charge of this pleasure we feel when eating is dopamine, which is released when eating food.

a) Hyperactivation

The key is that the level of dopamine that is released depends on the type of food and again here our biological heritage goes against.

The most caloric foods, with fats and sugars, has been proven that they generate a greater release of dopamine, since in this way our choice for energy storage was, again, guaranteed.

b) Neuroimagen and food addiction

Through neuroimaging tools it has been proven that The desire for active food the same brain areas that are activated in addicted people in search of drugs. It is not that they contain addictive substances, but that they generate addictive behaviors.

As we said, there are multiple studies in mice where, for example, it is shown that sugar water can generate more addiction in these animals than cocaine water and this is due to the famous brain reward system.

c) Anticipatory pleasure

Another "problem" in the face of this supposed addiction to food, is the fact that Dopamine is not only released when we eat, but also when we anticipate that we are going to eat.

Once again, the evolution did its job. Formerly we had to work very hard to get food, whether hunting or collecting, access to food was not as simple as opening the fridge.

Therefore, without this implicit desire for food and its anticipatory reward, the pleasure generated by the possibility of eating, we would have sacrificed to achieve food. This Anticipatory pleasure motivated us, moved us and activated.

2. The obesogenic atmosphere

We are social beings and we live immersed in an environment, a culture. This environment has been shown to affect us and influence the decisions we make.

With environment I mean both personal and social and cultural environment.

a) Personal atmosphere

Our most intimate circle limits us. There is a phrase that says we are the average of the five people with whom we spend the longest. Maybe this is exaggerated, now, there is really much.

It is very difficult to eat healthy if all your socialization revolves around ultraprocessed. This makes it very difficult and, unfortunately, it is what usually happens. Taking into account that poor diet is a pandemic issue, the easiest thing is that your environment is not different.

This environment many times not only limits us, but punishes us proper behavior, eating healthy. It is not understood that someone acts differently and the group tends to generate identity. If someone flees, the conflict arises.

It is proven that surrounding us with people who favor a healthy lifestyle, facilitates and predisposes that this new way of life is maintained in time.

b) Social and cultural environment

Here are two main problems:

On the one hand, the Ultra availability of food. As a general rule, we eat much more than we need and that ... it is so simple! We have enormously accessible foods, at hand, five meters from anywhere: office, home, street ..

We have a primitive brain reward system that lives with a modern environment. Our brain has not had so much time to change as the environment has done and now, this same brain that allowed us to survive and saved our lives, has become a trap.

On the other hand, the Marketing and the Ultraprocess Industry They constantly bombard us. The brain is prepared to anticipate pleasure for food and, of course, this does the industry know.

The food industry knows that our elections are subjected to attraction and take advantage of it. In addition, it is more economically profitable.

The food posters are everywhere, we cannot walk without finding images of food in bus stops, magazines, television, internet ... without forgetting all fast and highly palatable food businesses.

Reflect, how many chickpeas ads do you know? And of Calabacin? On the other hand, of chocolates and cookies we could name 200 right now.

Our brain looks bombarded and is not able to resist. We literally exploits the brain to dopamine to each input of appetizing information: donuts, hamburgers, chocolate, fried potatoes ..

3. Our learning system

The human being learns to behave through learning, emotional, cognitive and conductal.

In 1995, Arnow already appointed emotional hunger and the use of food not only to replenish energy, but to manage emotions.

Since childhood We have learned to use food as a reinforcer, either to provoke pleasure or to eliminate discomfort.

It is not difficult to find parents rewarding or punishing their children with food: "If you behave well, I buy you a good Kinder", "If you behave badly, there is no ice cream".

In addition to generate a rejection of healthy food through obligation. It is mandatory to eat the vegetables, instead it is prohibited to drink chocolate or sweets at any time. This generates a evil Polarized, "Black and Black" learning ", where healthy food is negative and ultra -process food is positive.

When we grow up, we no longer have our parents to govern our diet and still we continue to use these awards. We celebrate anything eating, If we are sad we eat because "we deserve it for having had a bad day", If we are boring we eat.. .

We have learned to use food in a wrong way, not to nourish ourselves, but to manage our emotions. Once again, not everything is about having nutrition knowledge, but about becoming aware of all the obstacles that we will have in the path of change.

Guilt vs responsibility

It is obvious that We can't blame ourselves for having a bad relationship with food.

We have too many enemies, we could say that all stars align to eat outrage and have a toxic relationship with food is the general norm.

It is clear that it is, analyzing our society. However… . and now that?

There is no more blind than the one who opened his eyes and decides to close them again.

That we are not guilty of having been absorbed by an obesogenic environment, victims of the marketing industry and our own brain, It does not mean that we cannot take the reins.

Now that we are aware, we must do our best to generate change.

Our health is at stake and, this game is no joke.

Let's take the reins.

And if we cannot alone, let's advise on psychology and nutrition professionals.

Dare to be your best version.