Food Addiction - Its a Thing

 

We are suffering an epidemic of obesity in the USA, and it is getting worse instead of better. From 2000 through 2020 the US obesity rate increased from 30.5% to 41.9%. During the same time, the prevalence of severe obesity increased from 4.7% to 9.2%. And that is just obesity. Over 73% of Americans are overweight. That's right, three out of four of us. The negative health consequences of all this excess American lard include high blood pressure, heart disease, cancers, diabetes, stroke and arthritis, not even considering the mental health and quality of life consequences.

Most people automatically assume that those who struggle with their weight lack willpower and that they just need to eat less and exercise more.  While certainly that can be true in some cases, a growing body of evidence points to a very different root cause - food addiction.

Food addiction is just like drug or alcohol addiction. Addiction means the body has become chemically dependent on one or more substances and needs these substances to function “normally”. So when we are talking about a specific food as potentially being a substance of abuse we are saying that the body has become dependent on a particular food or eating behavior. The most common addictive foods are foods high in sugar, white flour, fat, grains and salt or some combination of these.

Compounding the problem, processed and fast foods are often deliberately formulated with addictive ingredients intended to create cravings for more.

Brain scans of people consuming highly processed foods reveal the exact same neural activity seen in drug, alcohol, nicotine and other addictions. Laboratory experiments on rats have demonstrated that sugar - just one of several potentially addictive ingredients in possessed foods - has an effect on the brain similar to that of morphine.

One of the main signs of food addiction is a loss of control over your eating behavior. If you feel like you want to stop but can’t, you eat to the point of feeling sick, or you feel ashamed or guilty about your eating, you may be suffering from food addiction.

For people who suffer from food addiction it’s also common to experience symptoms of withdrawal when they stop eating a certain food.

Food addiction also can affect your relationships and social life. People with food addiction may have problems at work or school, lose interest in activities they used to enjoy, avoid social events or become isolated from family members and friends. It is not a happy life.

Overcoming food addiction typically involves following the same model that’s used to treat other types of addictions - detox, behavioral changes, avoiding certain trigger foods. Professional medical and mental health support is needed more often than not, so talk to your primary care physician about possible options.

At the end of the day is is not all about willpower and people addicted to eating need and deserve the same consideration and support as any other addicted person would receive.