Letting go of the power of food

When did food become such an obsession in our society? Now, I realize for centuries, parties and celebrations were all centered around food, but it seems now that each day is a 'celebration' of snacks, eating at restaurants, relaxing in front of the T.V. with food that our bodies do not need.
A number of people I saw this week felt desperate at the idea of not having evening snacks or having to reduce their food intake. I know this is not their fault, as the dopamine in their brain drives the reward system. I lament however the easy availability and cheap cost of snacks, the advertising, and how we have drifted to accepting these snacks as a habit and a method of nurturing our stressed lives.
Food is indeed addictive. The power (especially the sugars) these substances have over many people is unfortunate. How we overcome the addiction is not easy, since food-snacks are legal, cheap and available to anyone, no matter how damaging they are to our health.
Added to this have been decades of 'dieting' for many people, who usually attempt quick restrictive diets only to find the weight comes back on. They feel helpless to start again.
Somehow, we have to develop very strong reasons why we want to lose weight, and these reasons must become so strong that they ultimately can help us overcome the desire to eat mindlessly. Most people I meet will tell me, "of course I want to lose weight", but this is vague. We need to be very specific; to be able to visualize and almost 'feel' what it is like to have the weight off well before it occurs. If we don't find strong reasons and work with them daily then food will always overpower us.
Today, three people were feeling helpless in the face of trying to lose weight. All they could tell me is that every day they think about food, worry about food, and usually give into the food, especially in the evening only to feel guilty and more helpless the next day.
Let's assume I say "you can't have any snacks after dinner". What would happen? Are we worried about hunger? No one who has dinner is truly hungry in the evening; they may want something, but they aren't hungry. At the moment we want the snack we should stop and think about what it is we want to achieve. Smaller clothes. Less joint pain? Fewer meds? What is your purpose? If we can overcome that immediate desire then we are more likely to be able to walk away from the food. Ideally, no tempting snacks would be in the house. Even more ideal would be some distraction, go for a walk, read a book somewhere away from the food, do some chores; anything to take our minds off the cravings.
If we can go for a number of days with fewer or no snacks, then the habit is less intense. Surprisingly, eventually, it can disappear.
I make a lot of this sound so simple, and I know it's not. For a lot of us, food reward is tied into our poor self-esteem, our stresses in life, past misadventures, poor sleep, fatigue, pain and so on.
What I want people to do, is not give up on themselves. I don't care if you have tried 10 diets in the past, we need to focus on learning to give up on habits that have developed over a life time.
Write down why you want to lose weight. Write down those barriers you have faced in the past and are facing now. Know your danger times of the day and begin your 'diet' by trying to conquer these first. Most of all, never give up. I've seen so many successes in people who thought they could never lose weight and keep it off.
You can do it.
Dr. Doug