Americas Secret Addiction

America is a nation of self-disclosers, amiably acceptant of our weaknesses. Celebrities, family members, coworkers and friends think nothing of admitting their compulsions and dependencies on alcohol, street drugs, prescription medications. We enter rehab programs, clean up, dry out, and go on with our lives: beating our problem or entering a long series of relapses and treatment episodes. Except, perhaps, for politicians or ministers, there is little social stigma attached to such mistakes unless there are criminal overtones that may lead to incarceration.

Television and films have educated us on the dangers and side effects of dependence upon alcohol, heroin, cocaine, amphetamines, designer drugs, steroids, pain pills, cannabis and opium. We had to coin the term chemical dependency (CD) to completely cover the broad and ever-growing field. We approach individuals ensnared in their abuse as victims of a disease, to be educated and helped as long as they have a willingness to change and are prepared for the painful journey that owning responsibility for one's own self-destructive behavior demands.

But the most widespread, self-destructive, dangerous addiction afflicting America is never discussed: FOOD.

The treatment of overeating is extensive: diet clinics, fitness programs, fat farms, plastic surgery. We collectively spend billions of dollars on weight loss aids and fitness equipment. We decry the epidemic of obesity that is overtaking our population to an enormous (literally) degree. We investigate metabolism and hormonal effects. We debate the comparative merits and flaws of protein, fats, carbohydrates, and roughage. We develop new vitamin and mineral formulae. Diet books, support groups, internet clubs, and television shows trumpet tips, techniques, special aids and hundreds of weight control regimes that promise inevitable weight loss with the right combination of "tasty" and "delicious" foods, guaranteed to ensure that our comfort levels remain high and our self-discipline minimally challenged.

We fail to confront the irrefutable fact that obesity is caused by food addiction. Excuses and metabolic rationales aside (No, Virginia, no one ever walked out of a Nazi concentration camp or a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp fat -macabre but true) our out-of-control overweight is a direct result of our obsession with, and dependency on, too much food.

You may disagree. After all, the other CD addictions are for substances we can totally banish from our lives whereas we have to eat to live.

Consider the problem from a slightly different perspective. In the United States, an "all or nothing" society, the goal of the typical CD treatment program is total abstention. The alcoholic is taught that one sip of liquor is never acceptable and constitutes a full relapse from which recovery must start over. In Europe, and many other parts of the world, moderation is considered more realistic than abstention. The goal is to lower the level of usage to the point where it has no deleterious effects on the user's life and the problems - work, relationships, mood, productivity -are resolved.

Such a model can more easily be applied to food. Our bodies require a certain level of sustenance to thrive. It is when the intake becomes excessive that problems arise: appearance, the inability to be active, fatigue, depressed mood, and strains on the internal organs. If we can temper that level of intake, we can avert the consequences that follow overindulgence in anything.

Such is indeed the focus of many weight control programs. However, they are missing one vital ingredient: acceptance of personal responsibility. At a 12-Step meeting, members repetitively admit to the group: "My name is B and I'm an alcoholic." Imagine, if you will, the different atmosphere that would be engendered if a member were to state: "My name is B. I drink a lot because I inherited the genes from my drunken parents and I can't drink, like all my friends can, without overdoing it. It's so unfair that everyone else can enjoy a drink and I can't."

Such a statement sounds ridiculous coming from an admitted problem drinker yet that is exactly what we allow from our problem eaters. It is far more likely that we will tell a close friend: "M, I think you have a problem with alcohol and I want you to get help," than we will tell an equally close friend: "G, I think you have a problem with too much eating and I want you to get help."

We remain silent about overweight because we don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. We use euphemisms like "heavy" and "queen-sized" to avoid th