Because it is the earliest addiction, food is very often the primary one
. Many alcoholics manage to stop drinking only to be confronted with their addiction to food in their recovery. It is also the most common addiction. More people die from it each year than all the other addictions combined, yet there's rarely an emphasis put on food as a potentially lethal substance. There are no labels on bakery trucks or photos of seven-layer cakes in magazines that announce, "Warning: Consumption may be dangerous to your health." Nor is there much social stigma attached to food addiction. Eating too much is generally considered a joke, but 1 didn't laugh at the sign I recently saw on the wall of a New York restaurant: