In the New York Times Science section today, there is a pretentious scientific article that says comfort foods turn off stress.  Scientists have found this to be true.  Heck, we knew this from the first time our mothers popped a nipple into our mouths.  Ever since that momentous time, she has been encouraging us to eat.  Mothers seem to have known this from the start of time.  It has taken all this time for the scientists to come up with proof.

Dr. Phil is attacking obesity.  He has been given wide coverage in the media about wide people declaring their helplessness to stop eating and gaining enormous amounts of life threatening weight. Do “fat” people eat because they are stressed?  Probably, but they also eat because they have a habit of stuffing their mouths continually and are abetted by the advertising that shoves pictures of happy THIN people stuffing their faces with all kinds of delicacies.

Think about it.  We are stressed by the omnipresent advertisements that our burgers are bigger, the fries that go along with them are bigger, the nibbling foods colored so prettily are available all the time, and you had better go get some to be in with the other popular people.  I do not think this is an overstatement. Some time ago, Mel Brooks produced a record where it was stated that a company was dedicated to filling up our arteries with cholesterol.  I do not think this is an overstatement either.

When you think about it, some of our doctors warned against smoking and did so with a cigarette fashionably dangling from their fingers. We are supposed to believe them. They are part of the problem. I went to one for help with control over my weight and hoped for a magic pill.  He got a group of us together, had us meet with him once a week, and got us talking about weight.  He never mentioned stress, but this was some time ago.  I remember the doctors who dispensed pills that made me nervous but did cut down on my need to eat.  I think those pills stressed me a lot.

Many years ago I sat in a movie house and there was a short film on how to control weight.  It showed a person slowing down the rate at which she took food into her mouth and over a period ate less and less and, consequently, lost weight.  This seemed to be a sensible program and never mentioned stress.  I think that all the weight control programs like Weight Watchers with their pep talks and encouragement do a great deal to take off weight.  They and we know that weight will come back on again.  No one knows how to avoid stress.