The Snack Won’t Save Me

Why We’re Protecting the Wrong Bodies—and Paying for It with Our Brains
"You should try eating something." It’s always delivered as if it’s kindness—a soft little dagger wrapped in concern. But what it really says is: "Your body makes me uncomfortable, and I need to believe you caused it yourself."
Because in our culture, thinness is suspicious. Overweight is framed as oppression—something done to you. Thin is framed as choice—discipline, vanity, control. But my body isn’t a morality tale, and it isn’t broken because I skipped lunch. My history isn’t something a snack could fix.
Survival Isn’t Vanity—It’s Biochemistry
People love to make thinness a story of self-control. They see a smaller body and imagine Pilates, kale salads, and self-absorption. But my thinness is not curated; it’s carved—etched into me by survival.
Two decades of medical intervention, chronic stress, and religious indoctrination trained my body to stay small, subdued, obedient. My nervous system lived in fight-or-flight for so long that it forgot what “rest and digest” felt like. I wasn’t restricting calories. I was surviving. For years, my daily chemical cocktail included:
SSRIs (antidepressants)
Opioid painkillers
Triptans & CGRP inhibitors (migraine drugs)
Anti-nausea medications
Prescription sleeping pills
I didn’t take these for aesthetics. I took them because I was anxious, in pain, too sick to function and because my mother and a guy in a lab coat told me I should. But survival has a cost—and it leaves a metabolic fingerprint.
What Long-Term Meds Really Do to a Body
Doctors rarely talk about the long-term metabolic consequences of these “everyday” drugs. But at a cellular level, they hijack the very systems that regulate weight, energy, and mood.
SSRIs – The “Happiness” Drugs:
Insulin Resistance: Chronic SSRI use is linked to metabolic syndrome and insulin resistance (Diabetes & Metabolism Journal, 2023).
Gut Damage: 90% of serotonin is made in the gut. SSRIs disrupt gut motility, impairing glucose regulation and causing erratic blood sugar swings.
Muscle Starvation: By altering how muscles uptake glucose, SSRIs leave mitochondria running on backup energy, creating chronic fatigue.
Opioid Painkillers:
Hormone Suppression: Long-term opioids suppress the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis (Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, 2019), flattening cortisol rhythms and tanking sex hormones essential for mitochondrial repair.
Muscle Atrophy: Low estrogen/testosterone means fewer mitochondria per cell, resulting in decreased lean muscle mass and lower energy production.
Migraine Drugs (Triptans & CGRP Inhibitors):
Oxygen Debt: Chronic vasoconstriction lowers oxygen delivery to tissues, mimicking the energy dysfunction of Type 2 diabetes and early Alzheimer’s.
Anti-Nausea Medications & Sleeping Pills:
Gut-Brain Shutdown: Sedating the vagus nerve slows detox pathways and gut motility, increasing systemic inflammation.
Brain Aging: Long-term use increases beta-amyloid accumulation (Nature Neuroscience, 2018), a known precursor to dementia. This is survival mode at the molecular level:
✔ Thin because digestion is impaired—not because calories are restricted.
✔ Inflamed despite “looking healthy.”
✔ Mitochondria running on emergency backup after years of chemical sabotage.
But nobody sees that. All they see is a body they’ve been trained to project assumptions onto.
The Real Epidemic: Energy Failure
Forget diet wars. Forget hashtags. The true health crisis is mitochondrial failure. Your mitochondria—the tiny power plants in your cells—determine whether you thrive or decay. When they stop responding to insulin, the entire system collapses:
✔ Type 2 Diabetes: Glucose gets locked out of cells, hoarded as fat.
✔ Type 3 Diabetes (Alzheimer’s): Neurons starve, and beta-amyloid plaques form as self-defense.
✔ Depression & Anxiety: Low ATP output dims the prefrontal cortex, making emotional regulation nearly impossible.
This isn’t about “skinny vs. fat.” It’s about whether your cells are running clean energy—or running on fumes.
The Body Double Standard
And yet, society clings to a warped double standard: Overweight bodies are sacred. Framed as victims of systemic harm, celebrated under the banner of “body positivity.” Thin bodies are suspicious. Framed as choice, ego, privilege. But both are symptoms of metabolic dysfunction:
✔ Overweight: Chronic insulin resistance → energy stored as fat.
✔ Thin, inflamed: Fight-or-flight metabolism → energy burned chaotically, reserves depleted.
Neither is health. But only one is “protected.” Here’s the uncomfortable truth: There’s nothing body-positive about defending insulin resistance.
The Health Halo That Broke Us
We didn’t stumble into this by accident. We were marketed into metabolic failure. The Greatest Health Marketing Hoaxes of the 90s & 2000s
Ovaltine – “Nutritious Malted Drink”
Marketed as “wholesome.” Reality? 2 Tbsp = 12g sugar. Add water, and you’re drinking vitamin-fortified hot cocoa.
Fruit Juice – “100% Natural”
One glass of orange juice has as much sugar as a soda. Liquid fructose overwhelms the liver, causing fatty liver disease (Journal of Hepatology, 2021).
Yoplait Yogurt – “99% Fat-Free”
One cup = 27g sugar—more than a Twinkie.
Breakfast Cereals – “Part of a Complete Breakfast”
40–60% sugar by weight, coated with synthetic vitamins to appear healthy.
Granola Bars – “Healthy Snacks”
Quaker Chewy bars? Candy bars wrapped in “natural” branding.
SlimFast & Diet Shakes
Marketed for weight loss, but loaded with sugar, processed soy, and artificial sweeteners—wrecking hunger signals and spiking insulin.
The Brain Cost of Denial
Metabolic dysfunction isn’t just about waistlines. It’s about brains rotting from the inside out.
✔ Alzheimer’s = Type 3 Diabetes: Insulin resistance starves neurons, leading to plaque formation.
✔ Cognitive Decline: Pre-diabetics are 60% more likely to develop dementia by 50 (Lancet Neurology, 2020).
✔ Mood Disorders: Mitochondrial dysfunction disrupts serotonin turnover, worsening depression and anxiety.
Your brain doesn’t care if you’re plus-size or sample-size. It only cares about clean fuel.
What Real Healing Looks Like
No, a snack won’t save me. And no protein bar will save you either. But metabolic sovereignty will:
✔ Sunlight Before Screens: Morning infrared reboots ATP production and lowers inflammation.
✔ Minerals > Macros: Sodium, potassium, magnesium—your body is a battery first, a calorie-burning machine second.
✔ Nervous System Reset: Breathwork and grounding calm inflammation faster than any trendy diet.
✔ Real Food, Real Time: Meat, eggs, seasonal produce. No powders. No lab-made “health drinks.”
The Real Conversation
So no, a snack won’t fix me. And maybe it’s time we stop pretending snacks are fixing anyone.
✔ Why do we ridicule thin people while half the population is pre-diabetic by 40?
✔ Why are we protecting metabolic dysfunction in the name of body positivity?
✔ Why are we still trusting the industries that sold us “healthy sugar drinks”?
The real rebellion isn’t eating more, eating less, or posting “empowerment” selfies. The real rebellion is taking back your biology. So the next time someone says, “You should try eating something,” I’ll smile. Because I know the truth: I don’t need a snack. I need a world brave enough to stop worshiping sickness.