I was at a restaurant waiting for my Burger and I got into thinking what should I write about in my next Hive blog post. That's when it struck me about the calorie rich food I was about to consume. Be it your favorite sugar rich blueberry cheese cake or the oily McDonald's fired chicken ,We all constantly crave for junk food from time to time.
I picked up my pen and got into doing some research and writing down my thoughts and I finally arrived at something interesting. So Stick with me till the end ,As I shall Uncover the Science behind it And I promise, I will keep it short and insightful.
Earlier due to Covid -19 lockdowns and strict social distancing norms in place ,we had cut down drastically our junk food habits. Most of us resorted to cooking at home. And during this period I am pretty sure most of us started feeling healthy due to the change in eating habits. But as soon as the world resumed we got back to the same unhealthy eating habits.
Despite knowing the consequences of constantly consuming these sugar rich and oily food , we still continue satisfy our hanker.
The answer lies in understanding the human evolutionary process. Science has proved to us that we have evolved from Apes. The perfect and complex human being we are today are a result of millions of years of evolution.
Back it time the early humans survived basically on hunting and gathering fruits from forests. This process of accumulating food from forests and going out for hunting were life threating activities as they would be attacked predators. Also keep in mind that food was scarce and sometimes they would return with almost nothing to eat. Realizing the efforts that go into getting food for survival, over a period of years the human brain evolved with certain abilities that facilitate human life survival. One of such features is the reward mechanism that was built into the brain.
Speaking of the brain we recently made a big breakthrough in decoding brain activity . You can read about it here
These rewards in the reward system are nothing but Neurotransmitters that are released into the body when food is consumed thus making humans feel good and pleasured And also encouraging to go out for hunting the next day.
Fast forward to today, gathering food isn't a herculean life threating task anymore . We can sit at the comfort of our home and order the food of our choice with just few clicks on our phone. And because food has became readily accessible to everyone only in last couple of 100 years ,evolution haven't been able to update this sudden change into the genome. Our brain constantly asks us to go out and eat high calorie tasty food because it makes us feel happy and all of these happens without a conscious thought. This is primarily the reason why our food craving are irresistible.
One conclusion that I arrived at would be to practice questioning every decision we as humans make be it any simple task, question it consciously.
For example, Say are hungry then ask yourself " Is this an unhealthy craving or do I actually require food to obtain energy for my functioning. This way you have the answer and is able to make an optimal decision. Keep in mind we are a result of evolution and it's difficult to quit on something that we have been accustom for years. Don't degrade your mental health by completely abstaining yourself from junk food. Take it slow and steady and gradually end up quitting it.
If you enjoyed my article please do consider sharing your thoughts in the comment section, I would love to interact with you. Also you may consider checking out my recent article on unhealthy happiness here
The above is completely my original work based on my own thoughts and research and I own all the pictures.
Thank you for reading.
