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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 7, 2023

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"Controlling your appetite" seems harder than "controlling what you eats" in the same way that "controlling what you are afraid of" seems harder than "controlling whether you into the fear", but fears are "controllable" too. Pairing a shock with a stimulus is a good way to condition a fear of said stimulus, and exposing yourself to the stimulus while paying attention to the lack of any bad consequences is the way that therapy can reduce fear.

The same thing works for appetite. Pay attention to what you're eating, how your body feels in response, and what the outcomes are. People are often very mindless about this, craving foods which make them feel bad and lead to undesirable outcomes while flinching away from making the connections. Make the connections, and all of a sudden those foods/quantities of foods no longer seem so appealing -- in the same way that a restaurant no longer seems so appealing after you get food poisoning there, only more subtle because the effects are not so immediate and dramatic. When someone says something horribly fat shaming like "You eat too much", for example, instead of pushing it away with "I know I know don't rub it in I can't help it!", sit with it. Face it. "I do eat too much. I am fat, and look disgusting. My stomach feels disgustingly over full, once I pay attention to it". How hungry are you after sitting through that? How compelling is that same hunger?

Perhaps the easiest way to get a gut level feel for how much your relationship to food can change is to just not eat for a few days. Eventually you get over the neediness and experience the desire for food completely differently, in a way that leaves a lot more perceived freedom to do what you want to do.