Sugar - Food Industry’s Trump Card

Abstract

The moment you see something sweet in an aisle while visiting a supermarket, it sends a
tingle to your brain. The colourful and vibrant wrapper of a candy bar is enough to stimulate
your natural instinct to strive for sweetness, as evolution programmed us humans to hunt
for sweets. The aim of this study is to evaluate the impact of increasing added sugars in the
majority of foods consumed today and its role in the increasing rates of obesity. Secondary
data from archives, articles and internet research were used for this research. Analysis of
this research has shown a strong correlation between sugar consumption and the
prevalence of obesity. While the lack of primary data limits the generalizability of the
research, this work shows how increased sugar consumption in today's food industry can
directly and indirectly affect the basis of obesity.

Motivation

One of the main reasons to address this topic was my personal experience with obesity.
During the covid-19 lockdown, I used to binge eat all kinds of sugary stuff. With no physical
activity in my life, I reached my personal best weight of 85kg. I tried to cut down on the
sugar by consuming the so called “low-fat” products instead of the usual sweet things but
alas, nothing worked. The prickly words from others and my own discomfort of not being
able to play football was the last straw for me to address my health. Fasting, diets, calorie
tracking, gym training and fat loss, I studied everything I could about these topics to
understand the fundamental nature of why we get fat and hungry. While researching, I
found out that it’s not the total calories, but your hormones that cause weight gain, one of
them being insulin.