THE BIGGER PICTURE: Most people I meet would like to eat better, but struggle to change the foods they eat.
For some, lack of information is an issue. Most, however, know what they shouldn't be eating, yet can't find the will to stop. What makes it more difficult is that food is critical in our lives.
Nutrition is serious business. It is essential to our health and not something to mess around with.
Ultimately we are cells, bound together and serving a complexity of functions. These cells make and break everything we need. They transport substances, remove waste, carry out repairs and regulate overall functioning.
We should be in awe of cellular functioning. Instead, we rarely think of it at all. No wonder we struggle to think well about food - all our cells need from us comes directly from our diet.
If we were thinking well about ourselves, we would eat well. One might even say a person's personal sense of worth and esteem could be measured by the foods they eat. Equally, I consider that making a commitment to eating good foods gives you a chance to value yourself.
We have a lot of control over what we put into our bodies, yet few people feel this control. We certainly don't apply that control to our behaviour. Rather, we are driven by two factors: perceptions of taste, and how we're "feeling".
We want our food to make us feel full, good, comfortable, excited and satisfied.
For most, food has become deeply entwined with our emotions. Struggling with how you deal with food? Ask yourself how you deal with your emotions.
Believe it or not, our taste preferences are learned. Chocolate isn't actually tasty to all human beings. It is acquired. Moreover it is addictive.
Being overweight is not a struggle of loving your food, but of being addicted to it. In fact, it's not even "food" that they can't stop eating. Broccoli and tomatoes aren't on their lists of must-have, need more.
Only a few substances - masquerading as food - fool our tastes. They affect our central nervous system, providing a "high", and an escape, and a false sense of loveability. These, often, have little to do with nutrition.
Sugar, caffeine (as in tea, coffee and chocolate) and monosodiumglutamate are examples. None of these could be classed as "foods".
Less commonly known as addictive, however, are cheese, meat and fat. While meat and cheese could be argued to provide some nutrition, it is important to understand how we overuse these to the detriment of our health.
Furthermore, there are many things sold on the market as "edible", that I believe should never be classed as foods. Crisps, sweets, biscuits and chocolate bars are top of the list. They offer little nutrition and make only a destructive contribution to our health. I find the fact that they can be ingested and digested largely irrelevant.
If you could put your keys in your mouth, and they happened to dissolve, and then you accidentally swallowed them, finding them tasty, somehow satisfying with no immediate signs of trauma, would you call them food? Would you opt to eat them instead of a meal? Would you plan how you would get them when going out for the afternoon or to the movies?
There are companies founded to design just such things. In the name of pleasure and entertainment, they look for ways to make something addictive to us. These items - stocked on the shelves under the register at petrol stations and newsagents - represent technology that serves no useful purpose to humanity.
I wish them off the market. There are other, less destructive ways to enjoy ourselves, and certainly more useful ways to tickle our taste buds.
We do our children an incredible disservice when we teach them these things are "good treats", and never teach them to love the tastes and textures of nutritious foods.
At an early age, we lead them down a path of being addicted and needing escapes, and don't teach them to value themselves and have courage.
I love food. I don't wish to eat just for sustenance, but also want pleasure from my food. In pursuit of this goal, I have noticed that the foods that addict us also rob us of other flavours and full enjoyment. They narrow our palette, limit our choices, and take over control. There is little joy in that.
Unless we eat well, we cannot hope to be saved from chronic diseases or recover from poor health. It is possible to stop eating what is destroying us.
Tastes, in fact, are wonderful things. They connect us with food and warn us of poisons.
However, they can be fooled. Addicted substances leave us disempowered and lacking courage.
On the other hand, when you cut out the stuff that controls you, you enter into a world of deeper, more beautiful sensations of taste.
Shalini Sinha has founded Forward Movement, a clinic where she practises life coaching, the Bowen Technique and is studying nutritional medicine.