In my opinion: food is an addiction.

People who are addicted can "quit any time they want". If you have ever known an addict, and tried to get them to quit, this is a common phrase that you will hear them say. When they actually try to act upon their words they will nearly always be unable. They are so deeply ingrained in the habit, escape, or feeling of their addiction that they cannot escape it. Even if they do beat the odds, the chances of relapsing are just as high.

To make matters worse, a lot of people don’t recognize addiction as an illness. They seem to think that being addicted is a choice and that a person deserves everything that they are doing to themselves. Rather than assisting them in getting help, we pass the blame to the person who is addicted and tell them that they are there by choice and that they should just “STOP”. This leads to them not being able to turn anywhere for help because they can't be addicted, they are doing this to themselves, and so they continue to consume their addiction and hate themselves for it.

So now we turn the topic back to food addiction. We have a bunch of food addicts who have nowhere to turn because their addiction is not acknowledged. Hell, their addiction is downright shameful in the public eye. At least if they were addicted to heroin or cocaine people would understand, but since it’s food, no one does. Even though everyone every day sees addicts all around them in America. Even though lots of people are addicts themselves.

Sure they can try to eat less, or be told to eat less but it won’t help. No one believes that it is an addiction and no one will even acknowledge his or her pain. So they go deeper into their addiction. This is further compounded by that fact that corporations want them to consume more and more. If heroin was legal, and nobody saw heroin as an addiction, you can bet that we would have tons of heroin addicts everywhere. The companies would sell it as the new wonder drug, and everyone else would support them in their mass genocide.

Now even if we assume that it is a choice (which I disagree with), should it not be in the best interest of the public to keep companies honest? To force them to test everything that goes into consumer products rigorously before it hits the shelves? Why should money not be spent to keep the corporations from killing/maiming people second/first hand? Why do we protect corporations and not people? Why does an entity have more rights to live than a human?

Furthermore, it is ridiculous to say that we should never spend the public’s money on an issue that consumes and claims so many lives. Should we not try to find a solution to cancer because it does not affect you or others around you? Yeah we should only do that when/if you get it (/sarcasm). Any research or solution to a problem that is claiming a lot of lives is worth the time and money of the public. Who knows how many geniuses have come and gone because their life was snuffed out early, due to vehicular accidents, food, or other addictions? Who knows how much of peoples’, and by extent humanities’, time has been wasted by poverty and addiction. Why is apathy and scorn the norm for other people? Why can’t we just be compassionate and do our best to help everyone? Why can’t we just care?