Obsessed: America's Food Addiction--And My Own (2 page)

It has taken me a very long time to find a way back to health and balance, both physically and emotionally. I’m not there yet, but I’ve come a long way, and it’s time that I have the guts to talk about it. My battle is not over, but I think my story, and the stories of my friends and confidantes, many of them public figures who have had the courage to speak out about very private matters, might help you. I’m going to come clean, and you’ll see that you and I have a lot more in common than you might think.

This book is all about the need to nurture a conversation and start turning back the tide of the obesity epidemic. It’s time we have a real and public dialogue about food and weight, and
the threat they pose to the nation’s security. We have to. Right now, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tells us that two in every three Americans is either overweight or obese. We also have 12.5 million children, ages two to nineteen, who are obese—that’s three times as many as we had in the 1980s.
¹

This book is all about the need to nurture a conversation and start turning back the tide of the obesity epidemic.—
Mika

Between the increases in disordered eating and the rise in obesity, our kids, especially our girls, are in grave danger. As a mother I know that unless we intervene, my own two daughters will face challenges that might be even more frightening than those with which I have struggled. I cherish my girls, Emilie and Carlie, and I have to do everything I can to prevent them from becoming as obsessed with food as I have been. I owe it to them to work out my own issues and to start talking about what’s going on in our society, and how we can change.

I have never told my own story, not even to my closest friends, until now. But thanks to friends who have helped with this book, including the late Norah Ephron, Gayle King, Chris Christie, Jennifer Hudson, and countless others, my double life ends now. The truth is out. It’s not a pretty one, but I no longer care. Light really is the best disinfectant, and it is way past time to shine it on America’s screwed-up attitude toward food and what it is doing to us all.

One thing that has always driven me crazy about my internal body image wars is that friends and family members assume that being thin is my natural state. It most definitely is not. The truth is that I live under a daily tyranny of food cravings, and I fight against them constantly. I resent those around me who seem able to eat whatever they want, and I resent those who look at me, like my friend and co-author Diane Smith once did, and think,
Seriously, Mika, what would you know about being fat?

The truth is that I live under a daily tyranny of food cravings, and I fight against them constantly.—
Mika

Believe me, I know a lot. For years, I suffered from an almost uncontrollable urge to eat certain foods. My disordered eating patterns extended from late nights in high school, when I would jam two or three Big Macs down my throat, to all-night eating sessions alone in my dorm room, to an Ambien-addled night when I walked downstairs as if in a trance, in front of my horrified husband, who watched me scarf down an entire jar of Nutella with my bare hands.

I am finally ready to lay out the truth about all that. But it is really important that we put my struggles with the power of food—and Diane’s, and possibly yours—into a larger context. This is not just a story about each of us as individuals. It is also the story of a nation that makes eating hard to control.

Of course we are each responsible for our own behavior, and in the end we make our own decisions about what we eat. But we don’t do it in a vacuum. With so many Americans either overweight or obese, something larger must be going on. It
can’t be that all of us just lack moral fiber. Some of the problem has to be the kind of food available to us, and the environment in which we eat it.

It’s becoming more and more obvious that our national obesity crisis is not just a “discipline” issue. It is also an inevitable response to all sorts of forces around us, from the images we have about women’s bodies in society to the policies that make it harder for kids to get healthy food at school and easier for agricultural subsidies that put cheap food filled with sugar, fat, and salt within easy reach.

In this book I am going to be talking about all of this. Diane and I will be very honest about why we have sometimes eaten so badly, and we ask that you start being honest with your friends and family, too. Only by realizing that we are all in this together can we appreciate the need to think more about the forces that have put us here. And then we can get very specific about what you and I can do to turn things around—for ourselves, our children, and our communities.

I was in my early thirties when I realized that the way I ate was on a collision course with my dream of being a news reporter. I was a wife, a mother, and a journalist, and I just
had
to stay healthy if I was going to juggle all those responsibilities successfully. But staying healthy was hard when I was behaving like a junkie hungering for the next hit of crack. My mind wandered to food all the time. I can’t begin to tell you how much time I have wasted with those thoughts. I have literally spent years of my life obsessing over food, chasing after food, gobbling down
food—and then punishing myself for eating too much and trying to erase the effects.

I’m not afraid to say I am addicted to certain foods. To me, addiction is the right word: the one that fits the pattern of my behavior and helps to explain some of the poor choices I have made. Not everyone agrees. Some of the scientists, doctors, and therapists who spoke with Diane and me as we were writing this book are still skeptical about the idea that food can be addictive, because obviously it satisfies one of our most fundamental biological needs. We have to eat in order to survive, just as we have to breathe. In fact, I’ve heard people laugh at that idea and say, “What’s next? Are you going to tell me we’re addicted to air, too?”

I was behaving like a junkie hungering for the next hit of crack. My mind wandered to food all the time. I can’t begin to tell you how much time I have wasted with those thoughts.—
Mika

But while we do have to eat, we don’t have to eat cake and chips and over-the-top entrées loaded with high-calorie ingredients and chemical flavorings. And those are the kinds of foods that trigger an addiction-like response. In these pages, you’ll be hearing from people who are doing groundbreaking research on food addiction; research that is helping us understand what compulsive eating has in common with substance dependence.

Hear me out and then think about this during your next meal, or when you head to McDonald’s. Although you might go out absolutely determined to order a salad, you will in all likelihood be drawn instead to items on the menu that are
“hyperpalatable” or “ultraprocessed.” These are foods that have been packed with sugar, fat, and salt; foods we have processed, produced, and ingested in massive amounts over the last thirty or forty years. They are the foods many researchers blame, at least in part, for making our country one of the most obese on earth.

It shouldn’t surprise you to learn that these are also the foods I’ve been addicted to for years. The ugly truth is that millions of Americans like me have become “hooked” on foods that stimulate the body’s internal pleasure system. They give us the feeling of reward that calls us back for more. It’s a biological response built into the pathways of our bodies.

There’s a reason you don’t see people stuffing themselves with fruits, vegetables, lean meats, and nuts. Have I ever sat down and eaten a supersize bowl of broccoli? No way! But like millions of Americans, I have polished off a big bag of potato chips or a pint of ice cream at one sitting. I know I’m not alone when I admit that I have dived headfirst into burgers, fries, and other hyperprocessed foods.

I’m not obese or even overweight, and I am less obsessed with food than I once was, but I still struggle. I fantasize far too often about what I’m going to eat next, even as I maintain (most of the time) a diet that some people think is way too rigid. I know these kinds of struggles are taking place in families across the country, and I know a lot of people are losing them.

How sad for the next generation. Statistics show not only that more children are becoming obese, but that more children are also being treated for “disordered eating.” So we’ve not only got a lot of overweight kids, we’ve got a lot of kids at a healthy weight with unhealthy food habits. Every parent wants to raise
healthy and happy kids, but instead we seem to be setting them up for a lifelong losing battle with food.

Whose fault is it that America is getting fatter by the year? Is it all about personal responsibility, as the food industry maintains? Or has processed food been deliberately engineered to make us crave it? Could food industry lobbyists in the circles of power in Washington be partly to blame for the obesity crisis that is costing taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars every year?

Experts tell me that a lot of other factors are also helping us become fat. We offer gym at far too few schools and allow soda and candy to be sold in the vending machines of far too many. We build communities without sidewalks or safe recreation. We have a culture in which every business meeting and every social gathering is considered an occasion for eating. With fast food outlets at every corner, we can satisfy our cravings at the drop of a hat, with budget-priced junk food that is within easy reach 24/7.

Let’s face it: the odds are stacked against us.

No wonder we have a crisis of many dimensions. It’s a health crisis. In her book
A World Without Cancer
, Margaret Cuomo tells us that 30 percent of cancers are associated with obesity, diet, and lack of exercise. It’s an economic crisis, because it can be harder for overweight people to find good jobs. It’s a personal crisis for all of us who don’t feel good about the way we look or how we eat, and are embarrassed to admit it. It’s even a national security crisis, burdening the military
with overweight recruits and a shrinking pool of potential candidates; according to our military leaders, one out of four young people in America today is “too fat to fight.”
²