The Truth About Sugar Addiction With Bonnie Roney, RD

Just a reminder that good bodies is a podcast for entertainment purposes only. It is not a medical podcast and does not constitute medical advice. Always seek the advice of a physician or a health professional.

Hello, and welcome to Good Bodies. This is Emily. And this is Lauren. And we back, baby. I actually, I need to tell you something before I forget. Oh, please. So a while back, I told the story of when I took a Trinidadian curry roti on New York public transportation. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And it was like all soupy. It was dripping into my lap. People were giving me dirty looks as they rightfully should. Right. You're disgusting.

From that day on, I really like I made a vow to not eat at least like nothing beyond a protein bar in public. But I've really been wilding out this year. Emily, what did you eat on the train today? So like Nick, I'm clean. This came up on a recent episode because I was eating.

turkey, like roasted turkey out of a bag. And I was like, I can't believe I'm being this person, whatever. But I kind of say, like, I've been running late, lately, and sometimes you just need to brown bag it. Like you just need to brown bag it and you need to take whatever is available in the fridge.

What did I eat? Now, I'm going to preface this by saying I didn't eat it on the actual train. I was standing on the platform waiting for the train, but it was too hard-boiled eggs. Oh, Emily, no. It was a black bag. They were pre-peeled. I don't know if that makes me look better. I don't know if peeling egg cracks or eating a raw, slimy little rob. Well, it wasn't slimy.

It was, I patted it down. I also, I would also like to tell the audience. I know that it's like not hygienic, whatever. I didn't actually touch the X. Did you use like a little plastic for her? No, I used the Ziploc and I lost it out of the bag.

You were egg slurping on this platform. I used this book as a sort of sleeve for the egg, much like when you have a sub and you have like the sandwich bag over the sub. Not the same thing, but I'm understanding the concept. Or like a popsicle. When you have a popsicle wrapper and you kind of use it to shield your fingers from the popsicle. You're like slowly transforming into Kramer from Seinfeld before our eyes.

I love that. I'm Charlie from Allie Sunny. I feel like he would explore. I feel like that a little bit less. No. Did you ever watch Arrested Development? I need to. I have it. Oh, OK. You absolutely need to. But there's a character in it who she's like.

They're like, I feel bad for her. They're always like making comments about how she's gross. She's like, Michael Sarah's high school girlfriend. Yeah. And she's like, just kind of gross. And they're always making comments. And there's one episode where they're where Michael Sarah, but Michael Sarah finds it really charming. And that's the joke. Like he thinks it's really charming. That is funny. How gross she is because he likes her. Yeah. So he's like, she does the cutest thing. She she takes a hard build egg, puts it in her mouth and then squirts some mayo and she calls it a mayon egg.

I was one notch below and mayonnaise. Yeah. For more as a development. That's not something I would do. But I got to say, you know, in a pinch, you need your protein. I needed some sustenance on the way here. And I didn't, I didn't have a plan. So this is just to inform the audience. I am still a gross person, but also if you need some protein on the go and you don't have a protein bar,

A hard boiled egg, you know, it gets the job done. I think I'm weirdly proud of you, though, because I am such like, I will own being a militant intuitive eater. Like, I'm always like, did you eat? Like, like, if my friends are hungry, I'm like, no, we're going to get you something to eat right now before we go to our next thing. You're like my mom. It's like the first question. Oh, I think that. But yeah, I am a little maternal like that. I love that.

about you. Thank you. It is like a fat girl trope. So but I think it's just a coincidence like like a fat girl with a fanny pack with like snacks and it's like a thing like in the fat community, like they talk about it where friends will make you the mom of the group.

Oh, it's like, I can't explain it, but it happens. And so I always- So it's a real thing. It's not just a stereotype. No, no, it's a real thing. And I always hate myself just a little bit every time I mother my friends, because I'm like, oh, I'm doing the stereotype. But I'm happy you had your protein. Thank you. I mean, I feel good. I would have had to, I don't know what I would have done. I didn't really have time. You would have been hungry on the mic, so I'm so glad you sucked on an egg.

Well, I wouldn't put it like that before you got here. Speaking of the mom thing though, I did always have to play the mom in the school play. I feel like we've talked about this. We have not. I feel like this is also a fat-curl trope. When I was in a larger body, I would always be cast as the mom or the grandmother. Oh, in plays. I thought you meant at recess.

Oh, that too, like if we were playing house, I always had to be the mom. And I was always like taller than other kids too. I had like a growth spurt earlier than other kids. So I feel like maybe that played into it also, but I hated it to the point that I went to theater camp and I we did a production of Cinderella and I was cast as the evil stepmother, which is a fun role. It's a great role. Like it that is objectively a great role. It's one of the leads.

I complained so much and I didn't want to be the evil stepmother and I didn't even put it together until years later. It was because after years and years of being cast as you know Mrs. Cruella or like whatever like whatever the

Elderly part was. Or like it was also always like the villain or the evil person. And I never really put it together that like I felt like it actually was a slight against my body. Emily, they told me it was about my body when I was cast as Bloody Mary and

South Pacific. I've never seen that show. I auditioned for the lead role, but in that musical famously, there is a line where they're singing about her, and they're like, 101 pounds of fun. That's my little honey bun.

101, wait, so was the ingenue of the play 101 pounds? They were supposed to be, and I was, and the casting director literally told me to my face, sorry, this is a tangent on a tangent, but she goes, you're the best singer, but the guy who's playing the romantic lead is too short and small. They tried to put it on him. They were like, he's too little for you to look like a realistic romantic partner because you're so much bigger than he is.

So they gave me Bloody Mary and I just was like the sexiest.

which also like a very offensive character. Like I had to use like an island accent. Like it's not- Oh really? I mean listen the night is rough. It was written in the script. Like say word drop. So- Wait, there's so much to digest here. So they straight up told you how you were being discriminated against in the discrimination process. They told me to my face. Could they just change it to 201? 201 pounds of fun.

Oh, my God. Yeah, that would have been so much better. I think we can make adjustments now. We're not locked in. You don't need a person with fair skin to play Snow White. I feel like for kids' productions, it was loose in the rain as well. I mean, it also was the time of the... We talk about the early aughts and the low-rise pants. Totally. It was super toxic city. It's so toxic that Brittany had a song called Toxic. Exactly.

Okay, I mean, I did de-realize, but that was a fun, that was a fun little chat that we just had. So today, we are actually following up on an earlier topic that we touched on. We had a listener write in a few episodes ago about being addicted to chocolate. And she was wondering if she was addicted to chocolate. Right.

The jury's still out, but Lauren and I got to talking about the whole concept of sugar addiction and how we both don't believe that that's actually a real thing. At least, you know, I don't believe that sugar is physically addictive. I do believe that you can feel addicted to sugar as you can feel addicted to anything. I don't think sugar is addictive the same way. I don't think food is addictive. And I know this actually probably does alienate a lot of

our listeners because it's something that people really hold on to, you know, like being a food addict. Yeah, being a food addict or even, I know some people who even practice intuitive eating and no judgment to them, but they're like, and I'm like sort of in there because I'll like monitor my sugar a little bit, but they'll be like, well, yeah, I don't moralize food, but sugar's bad, you know? Right. Which is moralizing food right there. Right. Which like,

I mean, I just don't see the point in demonizing any food group because, like, obviously, if you eat anything in excess, and if that's all you eat, then it's not gonna be good for you, but the same could be said for protein. The same could be said for fiber. Like, it could be so cheese, for example. It could be said for anything. Yeah, has anyone ever ODied on Manchego? I wish.

I would like to see you try. Yeah, so I mean, that's how I feel about it. And when I learned about intuitive eating, I learned that once we start restricting things and moralizing things as bad, then it just makes us want it more. And it's basic human psychology. So I'm sure if we did the same thing with vegetables, right? If we told babies, you know, oh, yeah, like,

Don't eat your vegetables. They're really bad for you. Like you can only eat broccoli once again on Halloween. I'm pretty sure. And granted, it would need to be a widespread thing. Like all their friends would have to have parents that say the same thing about broccoli.

I would love to conduct this experiment, but it's too high level. Anyway, my point is I think that we would think of broccoli the same way we think of candy. I agree. I'm following and I agree. And to jump on to that, people do this with dogs and pills. Have you seen the TikToks where they, there's a TikTok where someone will throw like the dog medicine on the floor and they'll be like, no, no, don't eat that. And then the dog will eat it really fast.

Oh! And that's how they get their dog to take their, like, worm medication or something? Yeah. To further compare kids to dogs. Sorry. Sorry to any parents listening. No, but, like, the general concept of the way the energy that we exhibit, like, around certain foods, affects the way we think about them. It's psychological.

And you know, that's another thing with sugar that I hear people say all the time, like sugar makes kids bounce off the walls. And it's so it's just funny to me because I think like kids bounce off the walls no matter what. Yeah, I constantly shocked by how much energy my nephews have throughout the day. Like it is just

bananas. And it's not because they're eating sugar. But also another thought that I have is like, don't you want them to have energy to sustain themselves throughout the day? Like, yeah, kids are going, going, going all day. They're up at 6 a.m. They're going to school. They're coming home. They need to do homework. They have activities after school. It's really insane. So like, yeah, I don't think having a little bit of sugar to to boost their energy if that is even a real thing, which I can't speak to. But

Why is that a bad thing, you know? Yeah. Is it sugar or is it? They're literally have only been alive for 10 hours. Like they're just extremely young. That's a good point, Lauren. They haven't had all their energy drained out of their system over the years. So like your relationship to sugar, I mean, you said that you limit it a little bit. What does that look like in your day? I'm just curious. I don't know if this is me not being

Uh, at a great place with my intuitive eating journey. Cause again, like I always say, like it takes years, you know? Yeah. And I will say, I just before you explain, I will say like gentle nutrition, which is the last principle of intuitive eating.

It definitely comes into play. There's definitely, I was telling Lauren before we turn the mics on, I don't think it's a great idea to add 30 grams of sugar to every meal. I don't think that's great, and I don't go throughout my day looking for ways to add sugar into my meal. I think there is a way to be conscious about

certain macros and still be intuitive. And I think like gentle nutrition comes last for that reason. It's like once you neutralize your relationship. It's hard to start there. You can't start there. If you come from a dieting mindset, it's like impossible. It's impossible. You have to heal your relationship with food first. And then later on, you can start tweaking and making those adjustments. And it's really cool how that happens naturally. But anyway, go on. Well, I think we're on the same wavelength with that, but I will just

admit to the listeners that for me it does go a little bit beyond that like if I'm being and I'm getting more comfortable being honest on the show because I think I was I think I was trying too hard to be like perfect when I first joined being like I'm doing everything right.

Um, but like I still have thoughts about sugar that it's bad that I shouldn't that like, Oh, well, I had sugar yesterday. I'm not going to have dessert today. Like those thoughts are still there and my actions don't necessarily match up with them. But like when you're saying sugar, you're, you're talking like sweet sweets. Yeah, because I do love sweets and doesn't. And that chocoholics email was so funny to me. I love chocoholic girl. Yeah, girl, you need to pack your chocolate. So.

It's something that's a work in progress for me too, because I do think I'm moralized, sweet treats in the back of my head. I think it's really hard not to when the fear-mongering has been happening since we were babies. Exactly. We've been given this messaging for over 30 years, so it's going to still be around.

Yeah, and objectively, yeah, I know it's not the most nutritious thing, but I still think that it has its place. And I don't think you need to eliminate sugary treats or whatever in order to have an overall healthy diet. Like, I think that's just way too extreme. I don't need to follow anything that's too extreme, but I agree with you that like,

You know, we don't need to be adding in sweet treats where like we're not really craving that. Right. We want to maybe add in more nutrient dense things with gentle nutrition, but maybe not. But see, you know, I'm like.

Is this toxic, what I'm saying? Don't add in, sweet, but maybe that will build your satisfaction, and that is good. Yeah, I mean, but there are sweet things that also have other nutrients in them that are good for you. I don't like when people demonize fruit. I don't like the keto. That's so stupid to me. The keto crazies. I can't with the... No, like apples have carbs. Yeah, they have a shit ton of fiber.

That's how I imagine these people. It's like a little gremlin. It's like a demon. It's Kiwis have carbs. It's like, yes, all these things have carbs. Guess what? Your brain needs carbs. My shoes have carbs.

like it's yes, these things are sugar like fruit is still sugary, but it also has fiber. It has a depending on the fruit. It has different vitamins that are benefiting you. So we can't like demonize all sugar. I think it's just way too extreme. I wrote down some myths that

I have heard about sugar. Okay. It's, you know, these are things that everyday people say, but also fitness influencers who are the bane of my existence. I, God, I mean, I'm not even going to go there. I'm not even going to go there, but I think you already went there. I think like the fitness influencers are ruining social media, but yeah, that's fair.

There are some that are good. There are some that I follow. But they all start with like, nobody's going to want to hear this. But, and then I just scroll. I'm like, yeah, I don't want to hear it. No, you're actually real for that. I don't want to hear it. I scroll so fast.

That's the difference between us and a fitness influencer on Instagram is like, you can turn this off if you don't agree with us. Yeah. But the influencer, if you follow them, their videos are going to be popping up with when you didn't even ask. Right. So I wrote down a few things. Oh, I already said this. It makes you bounce off the walls, which is said mostly for children. Right. It's

It spikes your insulin, which apparently is a bad thing. Does it not spike your insulin? See, I'm dumb. It does spike your insulin, but that's literally a natural process in the body. That's what happens when you eat. Yeah. I hate the whole rhetoric of it spiked my blood sugar. Good. You have a healthy body. That's what's supposed to happen. Your cells are working.

This is just an example of how I think it's just gotten way too extreme in our culture of like there are people wearing insulin monitors who aren't even diabetic. We have functioning bodies but we're so scared of eating anything that will spike our blood sugar and we've invented all these

Maladies that are supposedly caused by spiking your blood sugar, like, oh, if you spike your blood sugar, it's going to make you tired. It's going to give you headaches. It's no way. It's really not. And I think if it does, it's mainly psychosomatic. Everybody really does seem like experts about it, which I think is what gets me. So annoyed. They're really, well, it does this and this keep keep going on what the experts say.

I've also heard many people say, and I'm curious if you've heard this, that it causes belly fat specifically, like eating sugar causes belly fat. I'm out of that algorithm, thankfully, but I'm not surprised. Okay, I mean, something I even hear like, you know,

I've heard, you know, people say at Thanksgiving dinners, you know, I hear people say this stuff all the time. Oh, like a beer gut. Like if you drink a lot of sugary beer, you get a beer gut. Yeah. And, you know, don't quote me on this, but I'm fairly certain that there is no specific food that will cause fat to be stored in one area of your body. I think for many of us, especially as we age, we do gain belly fat. But I think the reason for that, at least based on what I have

studied on my own is that when you, when you store fat, your body doesn't want to store it so much around your organs, because that's not optimal. So it will store it in places like your belly that are not close to major organs. Well, so that's why, you know,

especially as we age we put on fat in our midsection. Thanks, body. Right? Your body is very, very smart. So, but that is a myth that I've heard like, oh, you eat too many Snickers bar, you're going to get a spare tire like bullshit like that. This is one that I always laugh at. It's quote just as addictive as cocaine. Oh, yeah, I hate that one. Why do people say that? I hear

Friends say this. I hear people in my circles and drives me. I just keep my mouth shut because here's my question for those people. Have they ever done cocaine? Because I just feel like you have it. I feel the same way about people who claim to have runners high. It's like you've never done drugs. Yeah.

I find it really funny when people claim that sugar is a toxin. I see this a lot online and I wanted to bring it up to you because what I've started doing is when I see somebody comment, like, sugar is a toxin and I don't feed that to my kids or it's poison. I don't buy cereal, it's poison, whatever. This is a little thing that I've been doing in my spare time. I like to click on that person's profile and without fail, I always see a photo of them holding a cocktail.

And I just find it very ironic because- Call them out, Emily. Call them out. Thank you. I find it ironic just because alcohol is a known toxin. So clearly, you don't have an issue consuming toxins only when they taste delicious. You'll consume toxins if they taste like ass, apparently. Sometimes mommy needs her toxin.

Right. But baby, you can't have toxins. And by the way, like this is also not shaming people for drinking alcohol. I just don't think it's that big of a fucking deal. Yeah. And I've also never written a comment on somebody's post holding a cocktail that it's toxic and they're going to die for drinking. You know what? That's a really good point because we don't do that. But and it mostly happens with people in bigger bodies, but people will comment if someone's eating, you know, like a candy bar.

Yeah, and they're like, oh, that's bad for you. That's toxic. Yeah, the irony is not lost on me. You know what I mean? And it's what it's what I always think and like do what you got to do to make it throughout the day. You know, if you you need your five p.m. cocktail, I am absolutely not judging it. But by the same logic, we also shouldn't judge people for having a two p.m. Snickers bar. And that's all I have to say about that. But anyway, all these reasons are

These are reasons that we wanted to interview a dietitian specifically about the addictive nature or non-addictive nature sugar. We really want to get down to the brass tacks of all this stuff. So we are having registered dietitian Bonnie Roney on the podcast today. So excited. I'm so excited because I still have questions like I know

Um, I always hear that the hater in my, in my head and the hater in my head has been like, well, what do you guys know? And it's like, well, we're going to ask a dietitian hater. Yeah. Yeah. We're going to ask a dietitian and we're very, you know,

upfront and honest about the fact that we are super unqualified. We're podcasters. Yeah, we have thoughts. We have, you know, opinions and these are all our opinions, but it helps to have people who can actually break down the science. Yeah. Can talk about studies because there, there is a study that was done on rats that we plan to ask

Bonnie about that people cite a lot when they talk about sugar being addictive. So I really want to talk to her about that. But you know, hopefully this will be a little bit of a myth busting episode, but hopefully we will also learn some stuff. Because like I said, even though I don't think sugar is physically addictive and I think there's research to support that.

You can feel addicted to it. And I have felt addicted to it in the past. So this is going to be a discussion about, you know, how sugar breaks down in the body and how it affects the brain, but also how psychologically we can feel addicted to certain things, even if they're not physically addicted. So without further ado, let's bring in our guest for today, dietician Bonnie Roni.

And now we're sitting here with Bonnie Roney. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for having me today. I am beyond excited to be here. Oh my God, we're so excited to have you. We've, um, can't wait to talk about sugar. I love it. Yeah. Yeah. We've been following you on Instagram and I personally love your videos, um, because they kind of break down in layman's terms. And obviously we are not dieticians and we're not super sciencey girlies. So we love

comprehensive videos about nutrition that are easy to understand. So I would definitely recommend everybody follow you. But today we're talking sugar. And first and foremost, can you tell us about your credentials and why you're qualified to break down this topic with us?

Yeah, absolutely. And I love how you asked me to describe why I'm qualified to break down this topic because in this day and age 2024, it seems that a lot of people feel qualified to talk about nutrition. But the reality is when that happens, a lot of times harmful nutrition advice gets put out there. So I am a registered dietitian, which means I went to school to become a dietitian. After undergrad, I went

their 1200 hours of supervised practice to become a dietitian. So lots of additional training. And then after that, I furthered my training and I became a certified intuitive eating counselor because I just found that

so many people needed additional help with their entire relationship with food to reduce fear around eating. And I know we're going to talk about sugar today. And sugar specifically, there's so much fear around it. Like, is it addicting? Am I going to lose control? Will I eat too much? So those are my credentials a little bit about why I got into this field. And I'm so excited to talk about sugar.

Thank you, Bonnie. Well, let's, uh, let's get right into it. Um, so just to start things off super basic. Um, can you explain how does sugar break down in the body and like, what is its purpose as a nutrient? Yeah. So when a lot of people think of sugar, I think they think of.

table sugar, candy, ice cream, things like that. But really any carbohydrate is a sugar. So breads, hostas, all of your whole grains, there's even carbohydrates and dairy products. All of these things break down into sugar in our body. And this is not a bad thing. Sugar, glucose and specific, this is sugar. It's actually our body's preferred fuel source. So we need sugar. Oh.

I know. It's so fascinating. Our brains rely exclusively on glucose, which is sugar. So it's not scary at all. I think so many people are afraid of that word, sugar, but we have it. And like I said, so many things that we eat, carbs, grains, fruits, vegetables, dairy products. So it's not just in those high sugar foods. And I'm putting that in quotes that people typically think of.

So our bodies need sugar and love sugar. That's what you're saying. Yeah, yeah, carbs back down into glucose, which is sugar, and that's our body's preferred fuel source. So we thrive off of sugar. Can you survive if you don't eat sugar? If you don't eat carbs, yes. But that's not optimal because like I said, our brain relies exclusively on glucose. It is our brain's preferred fuel source. So while we can survive, if we take it out, it is not optimal. I don't want to survive. I want to thrive. Right. Exactly.

And that makes sense because when people go on keto and stuff, they have a keto flu, right? Like they actually physically feel bad when they don't ingest carbs. Right. And we can't say that that is healthy, right? If you are really feeling that horrible from a way that you are eating.

Yeah, I would think not, but some people say it's the best they've ever felt. So on this topic of sugar being addictive in your professional opinion, do you think that it's addictive? I don't. In my professional experience, that's my short answer. We could talk about this for a long time. So I know that I posted a video recently on

Instagram, and I talked about the reasons why sugar really is not addicting. There's a big argument for it being addictive, and there's so many issues with this. Number one, a lot of people push this argument comparing it to substance use, so for being addicted to alcohol or drugs and food is different. Cocaine is one I've heard frequently.

Yeah, all of these things. So we need food to survive. We can't just eliminate food. We have to eat it. So it's definitely different in that aspect. And when you look at withdrawal symptoms from alcohol, from drugs, like there are very real uncomfortable withdrawal symptoms, whereas with food, if you remove whatever food someone says they are maybe addicted to, we don't see those withdrawal symptoms. Maybe they're unhappy or, you know, they worry about

eating that food again in the future, but those withdrawal symptoms are not there. So very, very different in that aspect. In addition, there's an over-reliance on animal studies to push the point that sugar addiction is an actual thing. And by that...

These animal studies that I'm referencing, most of them have been done on rats and we're humans, so obviously we're different than rats, but... I'm actually part rat. Are you part rat? Yeah, I don't tell a lot of people, but...

Okay, well, perfect. So even with that being said, there is a lot of questionable information to pull from these studies to push the argument that sugar is addicting. So in these studies, for example, all of these rats that supposedly have addictive behavior, so more loss of control eating with sugar like

Urgency with eating they all experience some type of restriction They will restrict a food or give an intermittent access to food So then by the time that they actually had access to sugar they experienced like you know urgency like let me eat all of this right now Which makes sense because they were probably hungry. They're hungry. Yeah, they're hungry. I mean when I'm hungry I

I act a little crazy around food too. I need it. And that's normal because we're wired to survive. So when we're really hungry, we actually become more food seeking. Now, what's not talked about enough with these studies that I really think should be is when rats are given continuous access to food, they do not exhibit these addictive behaviors to sugar. So then we can really pull the argument, well, is it that sugar is addicting or is it they actually were just restricted to food and they needed to eat? We have no studies

to date that say otherwise, right? All of the studies that we have two dates on rats, they show that when restricted a food, yes, they show these addictive like behaviors to sugar. When not restricted a food, they do not show these addictive like behaviors.

That's food freedom. Yeah. And then when you think about humans, I mean, we are human beings. It's hard to conduct a study like that because we can't just send a lot of humans to a lab and say, here, eat all of this food. And then we're going to give you access to sugar or let's restrict all your food and then give you access to sugar. So we don't have a study done like that with human beings. There have been some brain imaging studies

Done that kind of push the argument. Okay, our people addicted to sugar and the argument here is well sugar lights up the the same pathways in the brain that drugs do and I want to say this is True, but other things that are completely harmless do this too. So being in love Mom's looking at photos of their smiling babies petting puppies listening to music and

You don't hear the argument of people saying that these things are addicting. Long story short, all of that to say, in my professional opinion, no, I don't think that sugar is addicting. Thank you. Thank you for that explanation. We're on the same page as you.

Just to clarify, what response in the brain are you talking about? Is it like a dopamine response that people are experiencing with sugar that they say is similar to drugs or petting puppies? Right. Yeah, we get this dopamine response when we eat.

It's said that this is like supposed to help us survive, right? It feels good. It's supposed to motivate behavior towards us, like doing the things that we literally need for survival, like eating is one of them. But also procreation, mating, like doing the thing literally does the same exact thing. So it's not a bad thing that this happens when we are eating. Like I said, we are wired to survive. So when we're really hungry, we actually become more food seeking.

And then when we eat food, we have a greater response, like a greater dopamine hit. So think about all the people that are fasting now that's really popular with some knee diet programs. So you go these really long periods of time without eating, and then you finally eat, and then you do get this big dopamine

So, of course, food is going to feel more rewarding. It's going to feel more enticing. And people might actually exhibit more like addictive like behaviors to food where they experience that loss of control eating, feeling like they can't stop that impulsivity. And these are also so many consequences that we see from dieting. When people diet, they're restricted a food mentally and physically.

And when we explore like what happens after they've been restricted for so long, oftentimes overeating that all or nothing behavior eating past comfortable fullness. These are really big things. I feel like I'm getting on a little bit of a.

a soap box here, but I feel like it's so important to talk about the role that restricting our food can play with feeling out of control with food. When I was thinking about this episode today, it really made me think of the Minnesota Servation experiment. Is that something that either of you have heard of? I'm familiar with it, but we haven't talked about it on the show at all. Yeah. Yeah.

Let's talk about it. So the Minnesota starvation experiment, this was done in the 1940s. It is something I reference all the time as a registered dietitian. And men that were considered to be of superior mind, health, and body were taken in to do a semi starvation study to really explore like what impacts does restricting our food have on

on people. And they were put on this semi starvation diet and they were given about 1500 to 1700 calories a day, give or take. And when you think about that in our world today, that almost sounds like a normal amount of calories to eat on a diet. But this was still considered a semi starvation diet and they did this for several months.

And prior to this experiment, these men really didn't have any like interesting behaviors around food, but throughout the course of the experiment, their entire relationships with food completely changed. They became preoccupied with food. They began to worry a lot about their eating. Some of them began to eat their meals really, really quickly or slowly.

Some would take food from other people after they experiment. Some of the men experience like that loss of control eating. And I want to read to you some of the quotes from this study because I feel like these quotes sound just like feeling addicted to sugar or like the argument of food addiction.

Yeah, so we have to talk about this. So here is exactly a few quotes from this study. Number one says, subs himself until he is bursting at the seams to the point of being nearly sick and still feels hungry. The next one reported that he had to discipline himself to keep from eating so much as to become ill. I have two more.

The next one says eight until he was uncomfortably full and then the last one had so little control over the mechanics of piling it in that he simply had to stay away from suicide because he could not find a point of satiation even when he was full to the guilds.

This sounds just like the argument for food addiction. It really does. So I feel like what you're saying is kind of what Emily and I have suspected is happening, where it's like people feel addicted to food. But what you're saying is like physically, like medically, you are not actually addicted to food. It's like this psychological warfare that's happening connected to restriction. Yeah. And then the other thing here is that we don't have

diagnostic criteria across the board for food addiction. There is the Yale Food Addiction Scale, and that's what has been used in a lot of research, but there's a lot of issues with this too because it relies on a lot of self-reported data. We need to look at how dieting and restrictive behaviors are impacting responses, how many people have eating disorders who are feeling this out, and

Again, like I said, there is no diagnostic criteria across the board. If it were an actual thing, if it were an actual addiction, it would be in the DSM-5. So Bonnie, why do you think people cling so tightly to the idea that sugar is addictive? Because you're giving us all this great information saying that it's not. But I feel like we have listeners right now who are like, well, I know I'm addicted to food. I know I'm addicted to sugar. Why do you think it is so hard to let go of that idea for people?

I think there are a lot of reasons. I think from the people that I talk to the most, they actually really do feel extremely out of control with food. And I want to hold space for how hard that is. It is so scary when you don't trust yourself around food. When you get around food and your distress is so high because you don't feel like you can have a bite without having the whole entire package.

So I think for some people it probably feels good to be able to have a label like I am addicted to food. This is the reason why I am this way. And it's hard to get to the place where we can reflect and look at how dieting or restricting our food has impacted these feelings around food because 100%

feeling this way around food, it's a lot. And I would rather us call this addictive behaviors rather than food addiction, because there is that loss of control. There is that feeling like you can't stop, where you're just thinking about it constantly. Yeah, I feel like that's the main thing here.

Yeah. And okay. I for one have been there. So I always want to like also add that disclaimer that it's, it does feel extremely real. And us saying that something isn't maybe physically addictive doesn't mean that you can't be psychologically addictive. Um, but I appreciate you saying that it, it seems like it is all because of restriction, but how does that actually happen psychologically? Like you restricting something. How does that lead to you wanting to binge on it or becoming obsessed with it?

I think it comes back to how our body is wired to survive. So whenever we restrict our food, we want to seek out what's going to make us survive, right? What's going to make us feel better? So just like I referenced in that Minnesota starvation experiment, when these men were restricted of

food, they started to experience these behaviors, like the preoccupation with food. When we think about food all of the time, oftentimes that's a sign that we might be hungry, we might need to eat something. And for these men in the study that I talked about, about five months after the study, when they were able to eat normally again and

go through like a period of refeeding, what we would call it. They noticed that these behaviors started to subside, not 100% for everyone because really the impacts of restricting our food can be profound for so many people and they can last for so long. But at about five months after this study, they began to think about food less like on average as a whole, not experience these loss of control compulsive behaviors around food. And that's probably because their basic needs were beginning to be met.

Now, in diet culture in our world today, we have the actual restrictive diets where we are limiting our calories physically, not eating enough. But at the same time, there's a lot of psychological restriction that can happen. And this is really sneaky. And this also really has a big impact on the way we feel around food, like feeling out of control with food, because we are human beings. We're very complex. There are so many things that impact the way we think and feel and act around food.

this type of mental restriction, it can sound like, okay, you can have one cookie, but you can't have any more. You can have one starchy carb a day, but any more than that is terrible. So that makes us think about food a lot more. And then there's also something really interesting that happens when a lot of dieters or restrictors break this restraint that they have around food, then they also experience this kind of like loss of control eating. So it's like the mental rules that we create in addition to the

physical impacts that we have from not eating enough that greatly impact these loss of control moments that some people might have around food. Do you know what's so interesting to me is that you're talking about the Minnesota starvation experiment and how it took five months for them to return to normal eating behaviors?

And these are otherwise healthy men that, in theory, weren't thinking about restricting their food prior to the experiment. So one thing that I hear people say about intuitive eating a lot is that, oh, it doesn't work for me. I tried it, but it doesn't work for me. And that kind of always ruffles my feathers a little bit because in that experiment for otherwise healthy men who were not preoccupied with food before,

It still took five months for them to return to normal eating dieters. So then think about someone who's a lifelong dieter who has all these preconceived notions about food and all of these rules. It would take a lot longer to feel normal around food.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think about the clients that I've worked with and they've been dieting for 5, 10, 15, 20 plus years. And I also want to point out that you don't have to go on an official diet to be impacted this way. What could be considered maybe a moderate calorie deficit or watching the carbs or cutting out the sugar. These can all impact our relationship with food the same way. I think a lot of people think of like

up to the and weight watchers and noom and Jenny Craig when they think about these big diets and you know they might think well I've never done one of those so that doesn't explain why I feel this way around food so I must be addicted to food because it's not the dieting is doing this.

But chances are with our world, how it is, we have been impacted by this way of thinking, by the diet mentality, since we were probably all super young, whether it was through our parents telling us, hey, you've got to finish that broccoli before you get your dessert. Or hey, let me give you some money and take your Halloween candy and give it away. Sorry, that happened to me. It's sad. Yeah.

behaviors like that, or moments like that, I should say, can actually impact these loss of control experiences around the food, too. And these things that happen when we're really young. So even when we look at the Yale Food Addiction Scale, there's an argument that, OK,

Is this really food addiction or is it eating disorders and the adverse childhood experiences making people feel this way? And I thought of that when you said that you were giving money as a kid and getting your Halloween candy taken, not saying that that was like an adverse childhood experience, but it just made me think of what happens in childhood.

It's a lot. It's a lot to go through. But what happens in childhood impacts our relationship with food well into the rest of our lives. Trauma, all of this stuff. I know I'm kind of getting off the rails here by talking about so many other things, but I just feel like so much of this is really important to talk about.

Yeah. No, I'm really happy that you brought up childhood. We've noticed that sugar and particularly high fructose corn syrup is a huge concern among parents. So I'm curious, do you have any advice for parents on?

how much sugar to allow their kids. Should we be moderating it at all? Should we be avoiding talking about it to prevent negative beliefs around sugar? And also my biggest question, does sugar really make kids bounce off the walls and go crazy? First, I'm going to say something that's going to blow your mind about high fructose corn syrup. Okay. Okay.

It only has about 5% more fructose than regular table sugar. Take that. So actually not poison.

No, no. I mean, I'm not saying go home and just make all the food you consume come from high fructose corn syrup. We definitely benefit from eating a lot of different foods, a varied diet. I 100% stand behind that. But I also believe in the truth and sharing the fact that these things don't have to be so scary. So high fructose corn syrup really does not have that much fructose than regular table sugar that we consume often.

Um, on the topic of sugar and kids, I'm not sure if I can remember exactly what your, your question was specifically, but I do have two kids. They're both really young. So they're not quite at the age where I'm exposing them to a lot of different foods like this. My oldest is 18 months and so he does get some, you know,

Reese's or things like that. And I'm not a kid's dietitian, so I don't want to pretend like I am by any means. But I do stand by the belief that kids can be trusted with food, including sugar. And I know this can be really scary for adults and parents, especially if you don't trust yourself around food, right? If you're afraid that you're gonna lose control or be addicted to candy, let's say that because it was just Halloween,

To be able to watch your child enjoy that and try and trust them to listen to the amount that feels good to them, it can be so scary. But really when we look at kids as a whole, they are the best intuitive eaters out there. They're really good at regulating what they eat on average. So if you look at kind of what they eat throughout the week, like let's say this on average.

They might have one day where they eat a lot more carbs, which we know is sugar now, and then they might have another day where they're eating lots of protein. I see this with my son. He'll do one day where he just wants pancakes and granola bars, and then the next day he's like downing some meatballs, and that's all he wants.

But on average, they tend to meet their nutrition needs as far as carbohydrates, proteins, fats. So when we give them that ability to do that, then they are able to. And I believe firmly as a dietitian that this goes for sugar too now,

With parents, maybe not trusting themselves, they might instill a lot of different roles around sugar, and that can really change a child's relationship to it. Just like you mentioned, Lauren, when you were younger, you were given money for your Halloween candy. That sends this message like, oh, this Halloween candy is something special. I don't have it very often. So when I do have access to it, I want to eat this as much as I can.

But if we were, if we didn't have that happening, right? If maybe you had access to candy and you weren't made to feel bad for eating it or you weren't, it wasn't taken away. You might have had a different experience with it. Totally. And I remember in the intuitive eating book, um,

They referenced a study with like toddlers. They like put toddlers in a room and they just put food around and the toddlers like ate exactly what they needed. So it is like, I love thinking about that study. It's like, yeah, kids like know what to eat. It's the adults that are making them overthink it and moralize it.

Exactly. And there was even a study done. It's referenced in the intuitive eating book. And I think it's so fascinating because it looked at kids and it gave kids M&Ms. And they said, OK, here are red M&Ms. Here are yellow M&Ms. You can have as many yellow M&Ms as you want, but don't eat the red ones. We know M&Ms all taste the same regardless of the color that they are. And so the kids ate the most of the red M&Ms.

So that just goes to show when we are psychologically told to not have some type of food, we just are wired to want to have it more. And the kids showed that. We do it with all kinds of things. Some people do it with dairy, some people do it. There have been studies that people have convinced themselves that they're allergic to dairy when they're not even physically allergic. So we can't underestimate the mind with this stuff.

No. And I also want to make it clear that sometimes we do have to minimize or avoid foods for a medical reason. And I share this as someone. I have IBS. There are some foods that I really do not eat or I significantly reduce. And this is completely different than

cutting out a food for the purpose of maybe dieting or something like that. At the end of the day, I make sure my energies are met as I'm eating enough food. I try and find substitutions when I can. I wanted to ask you, as a dietitian, what would you recommend somebody do if they feel really addicted to sugar or they feel out of control around sweets? What would you tell them to do?

That is such a great question. There is no simple answer I can give right now to make someone feel better right now. But I would say that if this podcast episode has resonated with you and you want to explore this more, I would highly encourage working with a professional if possible, like a registered dietician who is well trained, well versed in specifically intuitive eating and having an anti diet approach to nutrition because they can really walk you through everything that

that you need to do to feel more comfortable around food. If that's not an option, I would recommend getting the intuitive eating book or listening to some intuitive eating podcasts. I think there's so much pressure to when you feel this way, to want a quick answer of how do I stop feeling out of control of food? How do I stop eating when I'm full? Let me go and get all of these foods because this intuitive eating dietician said that I can and I'm gonna keep them at home and then it feels really distressing.

So we don't wanna start out doing that. There's really a whole process that helps this. And I would say do those things and then maybe even try and reflect on your life and the diets you've done, how you've tried to restrict your food. This is a lot to process. It's a pretty lengthy practice, but really think about every single diet you have ever done. And then try and ask yourself, how did I feel after? So if I was able to follow this diet,

How long was I able to follow it for? So what we see is that really, diets don't work for the vast majority of people, right? Two to five plus years down the line, they're not able to do this and those food cravings come in. They start to go back to foods that they had restricted. So explore your history.

I believe that lived experience is one of the most important things we can look at with these food struggles. And when you do that, you can say, OK, I've limited my food for so long. I can see by exploring my history that this has made me more out of control in the long run. So the answer is not to go back to another diet. That's definitely not the answer. I've got to figure out something else to do moving forward.

Not something that's really important. I also believe that working to eat simply enough is going to help with these feelings around food. And this does not have to start with the food you feel out of control with. My motto is adequacy over variety. So stick to the foods that you feel comfortable with, that you can keep in your house without feeling out of control. Begin by eating those foods, eat enough. You consistently get in touch with your hunger cues, your fullness cues. The thing is when

When we're feeling really out of control with food, when people are experiencing a lot of those addictive behaviors to food, most of them are out of touch with hunger, cues, fullness, cues. So we have to regain that trust with our body, get back in touch with those cues. So work on that, work on challenging a lot of unhelpful food beliefs that you have. And then when you feel ready,

There's actually something called like exposure to food habituation with food that can decrease feeling out of control of it. So I don't recommend starting here because that can feel extremely distressing to so many people, right? Think about a food that you just feel like you eat a bite or you eat, you can have none of it or the entire thing. Like that's scary. So if you're going to bring that food into your house to distressing, we don't want to start. Yeah. But when you are

Yeah, when you are ready, we can get there. It's a process called systematic habituation. Essentially, it's a repeated exposure to foods, and that decreases the excitement around it, decreases feeling out of control with it. I like to compare it to the analogy of feeling in love. So I think about my husband and I, we've been together

for 16 years. We've been married seven years. The first time we said, I love you. It was so exciting. I had butterflies. It was great. But now when we say it, I still love him, but it's not the same kind of excitement. You know, I say it when I'm half asleep and we're leaving. Love him, but not the same thing. So that's what we're doing with food. Getting to a place where we're taking it off this pedestal that it's been on for so long and we're just normalizing it so that

you can exist with it. And so when we see this process working out habituation, people actually begin to feel better around food, binge eating decreases. At the time of the intuitive eating fourth edition book, when that was published in 2020, by then there were five studies to date saying that by giving binge eaters the foods that they were struggling with binge eating with,

as their treatment for recovering from binge eating, it helped them significantly reduce their binge eating episodes. So if food were addicting, right, getting back to that point of like, is food addicting, we would see the opposite happen. We would see if people were given more of the food that they struggle with being out of control around, it would increase their experiences of being out of control with it. But this actually was helpful to them. That was like their treatment for reducing their binge eating. So lots of things you can consider.

would not start there, but that is somewhere you can get to. Thank you so much, Bonnie. I'm going to tell literally everyone I talk to to listen to this episode. And if you're a friend listening to this episode, because I told you to listen, hi, thank you for listening.

Yeah, I feel like a lot of people in our lives need to hear it because it's hard, right? Because it is something that like a lot of people experience, so it's easy to get bogged down by the sugar thing. Bonnie, thank you so much for joining us today. Where can people find you and follow you? Thank you so much for having me here today. Instagram is my main spot where I hang out on and you can follow me there at diet.culture.reble.

Yeah, we love Bonnie's content. So everybody should follow her because, like I said, it's really educational, but it's in, you know, a way that's simple for us laymen people to understand. Guys, that's it for today's episode. Please send your questions to goodbodiesatbeaches.com to get them answered. Follow us at everything's fine on Instagram. If you like this episode, please write us a review.

Great review. Subscribe to the show and follow me at Lauren Hope Crass. Follow me at Lubination. And remember, stop moralizing sugar. Good Bodies is produced by Shannon Sassone and Lauren Hope Crass. Editing by Will Maxwell. Social media by Lauren Hope Crass. Guess booking by Allie Friedlander. Be sure to follow everything's fine on Instagram and send us your emails to goodbodies at betches.com.

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