Party party party 4 deep emotional attachment to food and has not evolved since the practice of medicine began . Instead of approaching the overweight individual in a holistic way , the traditional approach has seen us using mind – body separation at its worst ! Begin as you wish to continue The medical profession is only just beginning to realize that simply telling somebody to give up smoking because it is bad for you , is an exercise in abject futility . I think we ’ ve realized that you would have to be living in a cave in the Tundra not to know that smoking is bad for you . ( Mind you , if you lived in a cave in the Tundra with no access to cigarettes it would not be an issue for you !) I would argue that giving up unhealthy food is a much more complicated ask . The big difference is that , unlike nicotine or alcohol , we need food for our very survival ! Moreover , as we have seen already , we develop a much greater attachment to food in our formative years than we ever do to nicotine or alcohol ( although some teenagers do try to make up the difference !). Food addiction is the only addiction where we get hooked before we can walk ! Imagine the problem that a heroin addict would have wandering through their day with heroin available in lots of different forms everywhere they went ! They would get out of bed , open the fridge door and there it would be – taunting them . Opening the pantry door – more . Then they would go out only to be confronted by coffee shops with beautifully presented syringes , all ready to inject – with a nice clean needle and a small bow to make it look pretty ! How far would a heroin addict get through the day without using ? I believe that food is the most addictive substance on the planet – way more addictive than heroin . And we doctors expect you to go through your day – constantly confronted by this addictive substance that you need to survive – and only eat as much as you need to survive ! While the medical profession may have set the standard , the greater diet industry is equally to blame . The vast majority of diet plans out