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Unlike other public health issues – smoking, substance abuse, peer pressure around obesity seems to make the problem worse. Several recent studies reported in Obesity Research suggest that the stigma of overweight and its emotional fallout leads those who struggle with weight and eating to eat more, not less.

Why might this be so? For smoking, drinking and other unhealthy habits, abstinence is a viable and sometimes preferable choice. But we need to eat to live, so with food abstinence is not an option. To eat consciously we must learn to be moderate. And moderation is not a widely observed American trait.

Eating is a sensual experience, with its emotional roots deep in our earliest memories. From our first nursing at our mothers breast (or from the bottle offered by dad), eating is what humans do when we come together, be it family dinner or special celebrations. Food is not only the fuel that enables our survival; it represents connection, comfort, even love. No wonder, when our lives feel out of balance, our relationship with food also becomes unbalanced. Eating is comforting, at least in the short term. Over time, however, overeating as a coping mechanism never works, and becomes just another stress-producing part of life.

Our deep connection with food and eating is brilliantly exploited in advertising, with large portions of Haagen-Dazs and other snack foods offered up as a salve for what ails us. Studies have shown that food in advertising is also presented as means to relieve loneliness, replace relationships, reward ourselves, and manage stress. At the same time the media suggests we keep the medicinal chocolate cake handy, it also peddles images of beauty that are impossibly thin.