It’s 3pm and the craving hits.
You haven’t eaten in at least 1.5 hours and your brain is screaming for a sugar hit. Before long, your stomach joins in, because it is silly and it has forgotten that you are not even hungry.
You pop on down to the convenience store. You buy an entire packet of biscuits, thinking that you’ll just have one or two and then put the packet away for future snackage.
Oh… the whole packet is gone.
Awkward.
Welcome to the world of overeating, something that has been the bane of women’s existence since men first brought home an extra-large woolly mammoth.
It’s when your stomach and brain shut off entirely. You are unable to process anything that does not involve getting that next handful of chips into your mouth. Before you know it, your pantry is empty and you feel sick and quite sad.
But there’s good news and bad news.
The good news is that scientists have worked out a way to stop overeating altogether.
The bad news is that it involves CONTROLLING your brain with laser beams. That shine through your eyeballs.
Apparently, said laser beams turn off the part of the brain that is responsible for overeating. See exhibit A, this video of this poor mouse, just trying to eat its scraps of cheese, but getting SUPER laser-beamed in the process.
If you can’t watch the video – the laser switches on and off, and the mouse either starts or stops eating.
According to Mashable:
The neuroscientists modified the mice so that the specific neurons they were targeting would respond to light differently. In one group of mice, light would activate that specific part of the brain and, in the other group of mice, light would disable it. By shining a laser through the eyeballs of the mice into their brains, the scientists could then effectively activate or disable that part of the brain… when the neurons were shut down, the mice refused to eat, regardless of how hungry they were.
There’s no word on whether or not this kind of thing will actually become available for human use. But this kind of thing does worry me.
It worries me because it’s such an extreme, band-aid response to what may actually be a serious eating disorder for some.
Because, yes, everyone occasionally has a day where they eat way too much garlic bread and pizza and have to lie down for half an hour before they can either move. But if you are overeating on a REGULAR basis, and feeling a certain way about it, you may very well have Binge Eating Disorder – an eating disorder that has come to be recognised as Australia’s most common.
If you are concerned about binge eating disorder, you should absolutely not start googling “how to turn off hunger with lasers”. You should absolutely take a look at this post, or contact the Butterfly Foundation support line on 1800 334 673.
And if you’re not concerned about your mental health, but you would like to try and prevent the overeating of unhealthy food when you’re sitting in front of the TV watching Ja’mie Private School Girl?
Have a search around for healthy treats that take your fancy and keep them on hand for times when you just want something tasty.
I’m currently enjoying homemade kiwi fruit and watermelon ice blocks (just blend and pour into those lickety-sip moulds) but here are some other amazing Instagrammed recipe ideas…
Are you an overeater?
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Top Comments
What a strange article, very disjointed. Anyway, I just wanted to tackle the "Binge Eating Disorder" - sounds very medical but for most of us it's just certain foods that do this to us like Jam Guest, RedQueen and Barb Fisher mentioned. For me it was sugar, coffee and most man made carbs - complete overeating, couldn't stop eating them, couldn't stop thinking about eating them, would work out plans as to when I could get them next. However when I removed them from my diet altogether, just like magic, I would eat like a normal person - stop when full, not think about food until hungry again. Doesn't need to be complicated. As to low carb and high fat, I am a fan - check out this study - http://healthimpactnews.com...
Never realised about the sugar addiction as I don't have a sweet tooth. However, I recently learned to make jam which my husband loved, as did I. I would normally not have toast for breakfast but had it every day until the jam was gone and promptly went and bought supermarket jam because I wanted it. While being completely being disappointed in the store bought stuff, I kept eating it and have bought a second lot. I have also bought and eaten sweet biscuits, chocolate and ice cream which is completely out of character. Actually, I buy ice cream because my husband likes it but never eat it which has nothing to do with will power. I just don't desire it. What have I done? It is insidious!