The Complexity of Food: Exploring the Paradox of Pleasure and Health Consequences
The relationship between humanity and food is intricate and often puzzling. Food plays various cultural roles while also serving as the essential fuel for our physical well-being. However, at the heart of our modern society's connection with food lies a paradoxical belief: foods that taste good are deemed "bad" for our health (Fischler 1987; Liem, Mars, and de Graaf 2004; Taubes 2012). The pleasure we experience when consuming foods high in sugars and fats evolved during times when such nourishment was scarce and valuable. Yet, in today's food landscape, these energy-dense foods are more abundant than ever before. The ready availability of these high-energy foods has led to increased consumption (USDHHS, USDA 2015) and the emergence of an obesity epidemic (Hill and McCutcheon 1984; NHANES, CDC 2010), contributing to a rise in obesity-related conditions such as type-2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, certain cancers, and cardiovascular disease. Shockingly, these diseases are responsible for approximately 200,000 obesity-related deaths each year in the United States alone (Flegal et al. 2005), with obesity-related healthcare costs amounting to a staggering $147 billion annually (Finkelstein et al. 2009).
Despite our awareness of the detrimental health effects of excessive consumption of high-energy foods, the inclination to overindulge persists. Research into the obesogenic factors within the modern food environment and their impact on food perception and eating motivation is crucial in addressing unhealthy dietary habits and the associated costs to society.
Human beings have inherent daily feeding rhythms, a trait shared with many other animal species. Most cultures adhere to a pattern of three meals a day with intermittent snacking. The pace of eating during meals typically follows a consistent pattern, starting with an increase in eating rate until reaching a peak, after which it gradually slows down until eventually ceasing altogether. Obesity research focuses on understanding the factors that influence feeding frequency, meal size, and meal duration. These factors include hunger and satiety signals, emotional state, food familiarity, availability, and sensory appeal (Stice and Yokum 2016; Berthoud and Klein 2017; Strien 2018; van der Valk et al. 2019). While altered perception of the food environment, particularly in terms of taste, smell, and appearance, has been identified as a significant contributor to overeating palatable, energy-dense foods (Liu et al. 2019), the complete causes of diet-induced obesity are not yet fully understood. One relatively understudied aspect is the impact of added sugars, which are sugars incorporated into foods that traditionally do not contain them and are often consumed beyond our caloric requirements.
