Food Addiction Treatment

For a small percentage of the population, genetics and lifestyle factors can lead to physical food addiction. True food addiction can be defined as, “clinically significant physical and psychological dependence on high fat, high sugar, and highly palatable foods.”

This means addictive eating behavior. This is not the same as binge eating or binge eating disorder though it shares some similarities and may be a more extreme form of binge eating disorder.

Food addiction is not currently a medical diagnosis in the diagnostic and statistical manual.

Here are criteria that may indicate food addiction. 

• Craving (all food issues have this symptom)
• Persistent unsuccessful efforts to control eating 
• Continued eating despite physical or psychological problems
• Food consumed in larger amounts over a longer time than intended
• Great deal of time spent to obtain food or recover from its effects
• Increased amounts of food needed to have same effects
• Failure to fulfill major role obligations – i.e., leaving young child at home alone to go out and seek food; having to quit job due to eating all day long
• Social or interpersonal problems – i.e., stopped connecting with people you care about
• Use in physically hazardous conditions/failure to “cut back” – i.e., eating out of the trash

When a person struggles with food addiction, there is significant impulsivity and compulsivity. For example, having difficulty thinking through long-term decisions; once focused on a thought, it becomes obsessive and intrusive and can only think about food.

Those coping with food addiction also have less preoccupation with shape and weight unlike most other food issues including binge eating.

It's not a matter of will power, your body has learned to crave junk foods and this typically starts at a young age.

Addiction, in the context of alcohol or drugs, implies a physical dependence on a substance. This includes withdrawal symptoms, physical symptoms, tolerance and intense cravings.

Medically, there is a difference between physical dependence (withdrawal) and psychological dependence (compulsive use).

In some ways, food or sugar addiction is not the same as drug addiction.

• We all experience cravings (the most commonly craved foods in women is chocolate and in men is pizza), yet they generally occur later in the day vs earlier as they would in a drug addiction withdrawal (smokers don't usually experience their first craving after dinner while watching TV!).
• Children like intensely sweet tastes, which generally declines in adolescence, which is the opposite of tolerance.
• Binge eaters who restrict foods often experience a reduction in cravings after a period of time of allowing those "forbidden foods."

Compulsive eating develops in response to social (culture/media/peer influences) or psychological (criticism, low self-esteem, uncomfortable emotions) factors.

People become dependent on the process that happens – the good, soothing feelings and pleasure that go along with eating – rather than to the food itself.

Appetite Hormones Are Different

In obesity, ghrelin (an appetite stimulating hormone) does not decrease with food intake. Typically, ghrelin decreases after eating, which lets your body know you’ve eaten and are now satisfied.  

Similarly, obese individuals have decreased leptin receptors and thus, chronically elevated leptin levels. Leptin is the satiety hormone. A lack of leptin sensitivity means it takes more food to feel satiated, which also increases cravings.

This makes it extremely difficult to eat when hungry and stop when full as the body cues aren’t working properly.

Brain Chemistry & Food Addiction 

Studies have shown that people who were more impulsive tended to develop binge eating symptoms when exposed to a diet high in sugar. They also tended to show heightened cravings and loss of control over junk food. Conversely, participants shown to be less impulsive demonstrated the ability to appropriately control impulsive behavior and did not show abnormal eating behavior when exposed to the sugary diet.

Another study showed how consuming rapidly digesting carbs led to an initial surge in blood sugar levels, followed by sharp crash four hours later. This decrease in blood glucose was associated with excessive hunger and intense activation of the nucleus accumbens, a critical brain region involved in addictive behaviors.