For men and women suffering from an addiction to food, highly palatable foods (which are often rich in fat, sugar, and/or salt) trigger chemical reactions in the brain that induce feelings of pleasure and satisfaction. This reaction has been explained as comparable to an addict’s response to their substance of choice, as it activates the same brain reward center.
Food addicts become dependent upon the “good” feelings that are obtained from consuming certain foods, which often perpetuates a continued need to eat, even when not hungry. These behaviors generate a vicious cycle. As the food addict continues to gorge upon foods that induce pleasurable feelings, they often overindulge and eat beyond what is required for satiety and normal nutrition.
This can lead to several physical, emotional, and social consequences, such as digestive issues, heart disease, obesity, low-self esteem, depression, and isolation. A food addict will often re-engage in these destructive behaviors, even amidst undesired consequences, due to the need for induced feelings of pleasure.
Because of the ferocious cycle of food addiction and the detrimental consequences associated with this behavior, it is crucial that professional help is sought. If you or a loved one has been struggling with an addiction to food, consider the possibilities of a life free of this burden. You can find peace from an addiction to food by seeking the appropriate care and help you need.
Signs and Symptoms You May Be Addicted to Food
This Eating Disorder can be recognizable by numerous signs and symptoms. The following are possible symptoms of an addiction to food:
Gorging in more food than one can physically tolerate
Eating to the point of feeling ill
Going out of your way to obtain certain foods
Continuing to eat certain foods even if no longer hungry
Eating in secret, isolation
Avoiding social interactions, relationships, or functions to spend time eating certain foods.
Difficulty function in a career or job due to decreased efficiency
Spending a significant amount of money on buying certain foods for bingeing purposes
Decreased energy, chronic fatigue
Difficulty concentrating
Sleep disorders, such as insomnia or oversleeping
Restlessness
Irritability
Headaches
Digestive disorders
Suicidal ideations
If you or your loved one has been experiencing any of these above symptoms as a result of food addiction, seek out professional help immediately to work through these pertinent issues.
Food Addiction Help and Treatment
If you or a loved one has found yourself stuck in the vicious cycle of an addiction to food, you have likely experienced a roller coaster of emotions, including despair, frustration, and hopelessness. Living with an addiction to food may be preventing you from enjoying a life you once lived, though the possibility for healing always exists.
By seeking the appropriate help and care you need, you can find the resources to address your addiction to food in an effective manner. Thankfully, there are specialized food addiction treatment centers that can help you approach this disorder in a holistic and comprehensive manner. Food addiction treatment centers offer multi-specialty treatment that will focus on and address medical issues and nutritional concerns while integrating psychotherapy.
There is also a myriad of support groups that you can become involved with, such as Food Addicts Anonymous, Overeaters Anonymous, and Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous. These groups are 12 step-based programs that effectively address this on the physical, emotional, and spiritual aspects, offering much-needed support to individuals seeking to heal from their addiction to food.
Attempting to deal with your addiction to food alone can possibly further draw you into fear or isolation. Having guidance, help and support from an eating disorder center that treats food addiction, specialist, or support group can provide you or your loved one with the tools and resources you need to recover and heal from an addiction to food.
Understanding the differences between food addictions and an eating disorder means to also look at what eating disorders are. Eating disorders are identified into categories, specifically
Anorexia Nervosa
Bulimia Nervosa
Binge Eating Disorder
Eating disorders include both psychological, behavioral, and physiological symptoms. According to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIHM), eating disorders are defined as a potentially fatal illness that causes severe disturbances to a person’s eating behaviors.
Obsessions with food, body weight, and shape can also be a part of an eating disorder. Anorexia Nervosa is an eating disorder that includes extremely restrictive eating, extreme thinness, and a relentless pursuit of thinness and unwillingness to maintain a normal or healthy weight.
Anorexics typically have an intense fear of gaining weight, a distorted body image, and low self esteem that is influenced by perceptions of body weight and shape. Physical symptoms can include osteopenia or osteoporosis, anemia, brittle hair and nails, lanugo in severe malnutrition, low blood pressure, and heart rate, potential brain damage, and periods of time without a menstrual cycle (in females), or delay or absence of puberty in both males and females [4].
Bulimia Nervosa is defined as recurrent and frequent episodes of binging with lack of control or perception of lack of control, over binging episodes. The binge eating is typically followed with compensating behaviors, such as
Purging
Excessive exercise
Laxative abuse
Fasting
Or a combination of behaviors.
Individuals with bulimia tend to have a healthy or relatively healthy body weight compared to those with anorexia. Symptoms typically include:
Inflamed or sore throat
Swollen glands in neck and jaw
Eroded tooth enamel and sensitivity
Acid reflux and GI distress
Dehydration, and electrolyte imbalance.
Binge eating is when individuals feel a loss of control over their eating, with periods of binge eating that are not followed by compensatory behaviors. Typically those who binge eat struggle with obesity or being overweight.
Symptoms include eating large amount of food in a 2 hour period, eating when not hungry, eating significantly fast, and eating until uncomfortably full. Those who binge eat, typically do so in secret, may engage in various dieting behaviors without success, and may have separate financial accounts or money for binging, and state feelings of distress, shame and guilt around binging.
In conclusion, eating disorders and food addictions vary considerably. Even though food addictions seem to be similar to binge eating, food addictions are more related to eating patterns and pleasure and reward. Eating disorders are a psychological disorder that are both environmental and genetic in nature.
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