By Lubna Abdel-Aziz To eat or to overeat, that is the question! It is indeed no blur in mind and body, to eat only whenever we feel hungry. Would it were so, most of our health problems would disappear. None is so noble than to practice vigilant self-restraint at all times. The temptation of food is beyond control for most of us. We eat and we eat for good reason or without. As it was in the beginning, man's downfall from the Garden of Eden was caused by eating the forbidden food, so it is today, man's misery is caused by the forbidden food. The curse of our time is gluttony. During this holy month of Ramadan, Muslims adhere to a strict code of fasting from dawn to sunset. No easy task, it is a worthy sacrifice for the fateful whose reward is grace in heaven. Yet come sunset, we observe an incredible abuse of food of over-consumption and over- indulgence that is more than alarming. Contrary to the teachings of the Holy Prophet Mohamed, who preached moderation and self-restraint, he himself broke the fast with a sip of a juice and a date or two. Hours later, he would sustain himself with a sparse meal. The Holy Prophet also preached that it is sufficient for the son of Adam to eat a few mouthfuls to keep him going. "He does not fill any vessel worse than his stomach." For those who feel they must, the Holy Prophet counseled: "Let him fill one third with food, one third with drink, and one third with air." Eating little is therefore good; it keeps us healthy, nourished, energetic and alert, but we chose to ignore such counsel. One reason for overeating at Ramada is fasting. Fasting naturally increase food craving which is associated with certain brain activities. Another reason for indulgence in general is food abundance. This is the culture of plenty. Food is no longer mere sustenance for survival, it is an irresistible feast that fills all our senses. Therefore we eat because it is available. We may also eat for psychological reasons. Just like other addicts of alcohol, drugs and tobacco, overeaters harbour underlying emotional reasons and food affords them some escape, comfort and pleasure. When we abuse the food that is supposed to help us we only dig for ourselves a bigger hole from which we cannot climb. A 1998 Purdue University study found that nearly all religions strongly oppose gluttony. While preachers stress other fleshy sins, like lust or adultery, the Purdue research called 'overeating' the "overlooked." Christians consider gluttony one of the seven deadly sins, along with Lust, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, and Pride. Derived from the Latin Gluttire, means to gulp down or swallow. Over-consumption to the point of waste is considered a mortal sin. As in Islam, the Christian church advised followers "to stop eating while still hungry, and not allow your stomach to be filled with satisfaction." Judaism also frowned on gluttony according to their dietary laws of Kasruth. Rules governing what can be eaten helps people impose and understand self control. Buddhism encourages avoidance or sensory excesses in general, and Hinduism teaches the importance of avoiding excess in several areas of life, including food consumption: "the thoughtless glutton who gorges himself beyond his digestive fire's limits will be consumed by limitless ills." Among those limitless ills is obesity, with its myriad diseases. Apart from the unsightly corpulence, we lug around an increasingly dense fat layer of adipose tissue. In order to insure its maintenance and growth, this adipose tissue secretes hormones, something like developing its own endocrine system, which ironically makes us put on more fat. As the hormonal imbalance continues, it increases our appetite and cravings, thus we have less and less control of our eating habits. If society shuns the corpulence and religions forbid over- indulgence, why do we continue to overeat? We can blame it on the brain. Among other things, the pleasure center of the brain known as the hypothalamus, contains a satiety area, which if injured or impaired, leaves us with no sense of satiety. A study conducted by Rachel Batterham of University College, London, injected volunteers with intravenous drips of either saline or PYY, a powerful appetite suppressing hormone naturally secreted from the gut after eating. PYY volunteers showed, not only increased hypothalamus activity, but also increased activity in the orbital/frontal cortex involved in reward and pleasure. At a sumptuous lunch buffet following the experiment, saline volunteers devoured everything in site, whil e the calorie consumption of PYY recipients was insignificant. The visual temptation (we eat with our eyes as well as our mouths), is overwhelming. Above all else overeating is a habit, and ingrained habits are hard to break. Is there any other reason why we grab a bag of popcorn at the movies when we have just had a full dinner? A habit becomes an obsession, and obsession becomes an addiction. What we consume ends up by consuming us. Food is a fact of life, it is not going anywhere. We cannot avoid it, nor should we. It can be taunting and tantalizing, inviting and seductive, scrumptious and mouth-watering, therefore it is only natural to partake, but never to overtake. Even the site of food makes our mouths salivate and the juices in our stomachs increase, according to Pavlov's experiments. If we are what we eat, then what are we? Over- indulging slobbering, gluttonous creatures, wallowing in sugar and butter, sauces and creams, make us sick from head to toe, until the grave claims us? No! We are thinking humans, endowed with a brain that elevates us from the rest of the animal kingdom. The human mind is capable of anything. "It can make a heaven hell, and a hell heaven." How fascinating to watch the Olympic athletes and observe the power of the mind over body. The amazing human capacity for self-control is only matched by his endless desire for self preservation. If he can do all that, surely he can manage a simple exercise of keeping the hand from aiming at the mouth once too often. Lunch kills half of Paris, supper the other half. -- Baron de Montesquieu (1689 -- 1755)
