LOL...
One difference too that people aren't taking into consideration is that I have to eat fat. Someone can't completely abstain from food. Granted, some food choices are healthier than others, but no one goes cold turkey on food...lol. On the other hand, no one ever needs to smoke weed.
Hey, but rock out if any of you guys want to take that risk. Whatever. Please just don't subject your kids to seeing you high. Oh, and don't raid my snack pantry when you get the munchies...lol.
You don't have to eat junk food. Look at the obesity rate among American children.
Junk food addiction - are fast foods addictive
"A number of studies have been carried out in rats to look at processed foods and addiction. Dr. Ann Kelley, professor of neuroscience at Wisconsin University, together with Matthew Will, has been studying rats and diet for a number of years. One study found that a high-fat diet appears to alter the brain biochemistry in a similar way to drugs such as morphine. They say this is due to the release of opioids - chemicals in the brain - that reduce the feeling of being full.
According to Dr. Ann Kelley, rats "love the high-fat food and they eat and eat. We found there are actually brain changes that are elicited by exposure to a chronic high-fat diet." She believes that it is possible to compare the findings about rats to humans; making it very plausible that humans can become addicted to high-sugar and fatty foods.
"Those particular types of food - the fat and the sugar - are really the culprits," she said. "They're responsible for the behavioural changes that occur, the obesity and also the brain changes that look like addiction."
Bart G. Hoebel, a neuroscientist from Princeton University led a similar study into sugar addiction, which was published in the journal Obesity Research in June 2002. Again, rats were used and were gradually fed a diet with increasing amounts of sugar. The more sugar given, the quicker the rats ate it and when it was suddenly withdrawn from their food, they experienced "addiction-type" reactions, such as chattering teeth, anxiety and shaking.
According to Hoebel, sugar triggers the production of the brain's natural opioids. "We think that is a key to the addiction process," he said. "The brain is getting addicted to its own opioids as it would to morphine or heroin. Drugs give a bigger effect, but it is essentially the same process."
"The implication," he added, "is that some animals, and some people, can become overly dependent on sweet food, particularly if they periodically stop eating and then binge. This may relate to eating disorders such as bulimia."
More studies in rats by Dr. Sarah Leibowitz, a neurobiologist at Rockefeller University, New York, showed that exposure to fatty foods might reconfigure the hormonal system to want more fat. Her studies have shown that rats fed on a high-fat diet become more resistant to leptin - the hormone that stops eating. At the same time, levels of galanin - a brain peptide that stimulates eating and slows down energy expenditure - increases. She thinks that early exposure to fatty food could predispose children to always needing fatty products."