According to an article appearing this week in the San Francisco Chronicle, individuals working in the food industry often have eating issues. In recent weeks, at least three preeminent food figures, including Frank Bruni, restaurant critic for The New York Times, have published books about their personal struggles with eating disorders.

This pattern doesn't surprise therapists. Dr. David Kessler, author of a new book titled The End of Overeating, comments: "Food becomes a preoccupation. ... We're all wired to focus on the most salient stimuli. For some of us it can be sex, alcohol or gambling."

Dr. Debra Safer, a psychiatrist at Stanford Medical Center, comments: My belief is that you would have to have a proclivity toward overeating in the first place. ...Then the field might act as a magnet. ... One of the ways to deal with the preoccupation of food, but not allow yourself to eat, is to go into the food industry."
Dr. Safer bases her theories on an experiment performed during World War II in Minnesota. In the Minnesota Starvation Experiment, conducted by renowned scientist Ancel Keys at the University of Minnesota, 36 conscientious objectors volunteered to go hungry so scientists could gain insight into civilians who had been starved during the war.

Study participants became obsessed with watching others eat, immersed themselves in food literature and even took to collecting kitchen utensils. Currently, eating disorders experts believe that these reactions were physiological and the same as behavior exhibited by many anorexics.

(Source: www.sfgate.com)

Labels: eating disorder, food industry, food

Posted By: Aspen Education Group