In Defense of Mindless Eating
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In Defense of Mindless Eating Megan A. Dean1 Accepted: 14 September 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract This paper offers a defense of the practice of mindless eating. Popular accounts of the practice suggest that it is nonautonomous and to blame for many of society’s food related problems, including the so-called obesity epidemic and the prevalence of diet related illnesses like diabetes. I use Maureen Sie’s “traffic participation” account of agency to argue that some mindless eating is autonomous, or more specifically, agential. Insofar as we value autonomous eating, then, it should be valued. I also argue that mindless eating can be substantively good: it can help us achieve valuable ends, like creating and maintaining community. Acknowledging the agency and value in mindless eating has both practical and ethical benefits. I contend that it can help us preserve the value in mindless eating while suggesting more effective ways to change it, and, by offering a new narrative about mindless eaters, may be less damaging to agency than popular narratives. Keywords Food ethics · Mindless eating · Agency · Dieting · Eating
1 In Defense of Mindless Eating Perhaps you are among the “millions who are victims” of mindless eating (Laino 2011). If you watch videos or read while you snack, converse with a loved one during supper, eat breakfast while commuting to work, or daydream through lunch, you likely are. If we believe the literature, much of our eating is mindless. Recently disgraced but highly influential food researcher Brian Wansink and his co-author Jeffrey Sobal claimed that people make over 200 so-called “food decisions” per day without awareness (2007). And while chatting or daydreaming during a meal may seem harmless, mindless eating—also known as automatic, distracted, or habitual eating—has been blamed for many of society’s food-related problems, including widespread overeating, the so-called obesity epidemic, diet-related illnesses like diabetes, and eating disorders (Ogden et al. 2013,2017; Bellisle and Dalix 2001; Blass et al. 2006; Bellisle et al. 2009). One reason that mindless eating may lead to these terrible outcomes is that it may be inappropriately related to hunger: it may be caused by ignoring or suppressing hunger, meaning unmet physiological needs will erupt in mindless binging; * Megan A. Dean [email protected] 1
Philosophy Department, Michigan State University, 503 S. Kedzie Hall, East Lansing, MI 48824‑1032, USA
or by unconscious triggers for eating that bypass hunger and satiety or may in some sense corrupt these signals; or by insufficient management of hunger, where hunger is understood as an (at least sometimes) irrational desire that seeks pleasure without regard for health and well-being. Whatever the issue, the consensus seems to be that it would be best if we could do away with mindless munching altogether. In this paper, I argue that mindless eating does not deserve such disapprobation. I use Maureen Sie’s “traffic participation” account of agency to argue that some mind
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