Food is an addiction like any other. It can take over your mind and have the potential to ruin your health. TED Talks provide the opportunity for those who learned the hard way that they had an addiction and that they had to do something about it. Here are two TED Talks that talk about what it means to be addicted to food and how it can ruin your life.
Senior writer Cathy Gasiorowicz’s “From Addiction to Connection” uses humor in order to better talk about her serious addiction with food. She explains how she used to go to restaurant after restaurant and order a lot of food. Then she would go into the bathroom and purge everything she ate. She realized that bulimia could coincide with food addiction in always thinking about food and eating food. Gasiorowicz would spend a good amount of her first six years of marriage in the bathroom purging. She discovered that her illness was affecting the relationships she was having as well as her health in that her teeth were decaying from the constant eating and getting Barrett’s Esophagus. Gasiorowicz went to 12 Step meetings and suggests to everyone to keep close contact with the people you meet there as they can change your life and you can change theirs.
Creator of Naturally Healthy Desserts Laura Marquis’s “Confessions of a Sugar Addict in a Sugar-Laden World” is about her struggles with sugar addiction. When she was a teenager, she worked at a bakery in which she could eat the damaged food for free. Marquis would eat a whole bunch of different desserts including one half eaten in the trash. When she realized that sugar was what she was addicted to, she decided that she did not want to live the rest of her life with this addiction. Marquis states that studies have shown that sugar is eight times as addictive as cocaine.
Marquis decided to make some changes in her life by cutting down her sugar to 24 grams which is the equivalent of a cup of yogurt. She also knows to read the labels on the back of foods and make sure there is no added sugars. She eventually made her own snack brands to take control over what she puts in her body and others. These TED Talks are about taking control and proving that you have a purpose in your life.
Located in downtown Midland, The Springboard Center’s mission is to offer programs and services to treat alcohol and drug addiction treatment using an evidence based curriculum, 12 step programs, diet, nutrition, exercise, emotional, mental and spiritual development for a long recovery. For more information, please call us at 432-620-0255 as we are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
