Addicted to food, really?

sobriquet84

wow, mfp really has a lot of physicians and psychiatrists. who knew.

jclark0523

I don't believe in food addiction. It's a matter of self control and self discipline.
If you are addicted to something, then you start having adverse effects to not having it. When you go without over doing it on bad food, you start to feel better.

After how long? Talk to a true food addict, someone who has been tapping directly into the pleasure centers of their brain and releasing dopamine and pleasure response through the repeated use of food for a while. Talk to them the day after they try to stop overdoing it. Talk to them two days after. Talk to them a week after.

Will they eventually start feeling better? Yes. But then, "true" addicts to drugs, alcohol, etc., start to feel better after a while, too.

I'm totally okay with people saying "I think this is claimed more often than it's true," but saying it doesn't exist at all is ridiculous.

How on earth can doing something you have to do everyday be an addiction? If you are eating more than you need, its not because you are going to fall apart if you don't. It cause you just think it taste good and you can't control yourself (self-control). Your telling me if you lock a "food addict" in a room with nothing but pounds upon pound of something they don't think taste good but is FOOD, they would still eat it all up to satisfy their addiction? Stop it!

...I've eaten food out of my trash can before just because it was food. YOU stop it.

Haha! Good stuff!

arabianhorselover

Great post. Thank you for writing it.

I never wanted to say that I was addicted to food because I feel the same way you (the OP) does...addictions are simply weaknesses that could be overcome if the addict wanted to. I feel that way about smoking, drinking, gambling, drugs, food, all of it....

This is not the definition of an addiction, it never was, and it never will be. Addictions can be physiological, psychological, or simply compulsive beyond the sufferer's control. Addicts will oftentimes feel incredibly despondent and negative about their conditions and make great efforts to change it, but will relapse.
That is why part of recovering from addiction is relapsing, you will, in all likelihood, in all cases of addiction, relapse. These can be from simple nervous tics that relieve tension in anxiety suffers, like biting your fingernails, or pulling hair, to full on drug addiction where the user feels physically and psychologically compelled to use. Not using is not the same as not being an addict. People who have eating disorders do not always engage in those eating disorders, but will still feel the same negative emotions from them. This could be an over-eater who doesn't over-eat but feels the negative connotations that come with it, the thought of wasting, the strong urge to do it, and the resultant anxiety from not engaging in the addiction, if you over-eat and have those feelings at the same time, then you are a using addict. That is being an addict, and it is a marked difference from people who just stuff their faces out of sheer boredom or no control on their diet, that is what every single person in this thread who asserts that they had over ate and could "easily" solve that problem. The issue isn't that people who suffer from eating addiction have low self-control, it's that you never had self-control in the first place. People with an eating addiction will become fat because of their addiction, you will become fat because you are a slob.
This is the difference, you are projecting your own stupidity onto others, just because you got fat because of poor self control, doesn't mean that there aren't skinny/average/fat people who don't have a legitimate addiction to eating food.
Wanting to and needing to are two incredibly different things. You want to eat food, addicts feel like they NEED to eat food.

Please understand the basics of the subjects before you deign to fill this topic with stupidity.
You are ignorant, you have nothing but anecdotal evidence and refuse to do the actual research as to why various forms of addiction exists. There are people who chronically over eat, they are not hungry, they do not even want to eat, but they feel a grave compulsion to do so. This is no more controllable that someone who suffers from borderline personality disorder or other thought disturbances. The of self control is not the moment when you see a food item and keep yourself from eating it, self control in a sufferer's of addiction perspective is attempting to dispel the obsessive thoughts that create the addiction. These are thoughts like "I am a bad person if I do not do that thing." or "If I don't do that thing I will have a panic attack." or "I have to do that thing because it's the most important thing."
THAT is the root of the addiction, not eating the food, but the thinking behind it.

Once again, you saying that these addictions aren't real and are a symptom of loose self-control and excuse making goes against decades of psychological and physiological research. Also keep in mind that your body's hormones and metabolism matches your diet, so you can very, very, very easily have your body be incredibly stubborn and refuse to adapt to a newer diet with less food in it. This is something even body builders suffer from when they switch from their bulking phase to their cutting phase. Rapidly changing diet, or even slowly changing diet, especially if that diet has been a fixture for an extended period of time, is something your body does not enjoy doing, and your body very slowly adapts to those changes in diet by adjusting your metabolism and hormones.
There are hormones that are directly link to the feeling of hunger or the satisfaction of eating, and those become more prevalent the more and more someone eats. This is why it's significantly more difficult for people to lose weight the larger they become.

I haven't been overweight since I was in elementary school, and I've never suffered from compulsive eating or any real addictions beyond a brief period of smoking for the course of a year, but it's very, very easy to understand that these things are real, they do exist, and there's an enormous difference between an addict and someone lacking in self control.

Do some research instead of making yourself look like a fool.

determinedbutlazy

You can become addicted to anything that triggers a pleasure reaction and releases endorphins. Food, sex, alcohol, exercise, drugs... All can be addictive.

mikeykhan2003

Our culture lacks the ability to discern between abusing something and being addicted to it.

You can very easily abuse food as a coping mechanism or an indulgence; and there are definitely learned behaviors that can result from a given trigger (aka habit eating). But addicted? Of course everyone is addicted to food, but not how they mean it. It's not like you can give up eating without physical and mental withdrawal effects.

Jimaudit

According to the Food Addiction Institute (FAI) there have been 2,733 peer reviewed articles and books that point towards food being addictive since 2009.

Here is the first one listed under their research column: "Gearhardt AN, Yokum S, Orr PT, Stice E, Corbin WR, Brownell KD. Neural Correlates of Food Addiction. Yale Rudd Center, Archives of General Psychiatry. 2011 Apr."

Am I addicted to food? Not sure, but I do know that it certainly triggers odd responses depending on what I am eating.

ndj1979

How about this? I won't judge you for being an uninformed narcissist and you don't judge me for calling my food struggle an addiction. Addictive personalities can become addicted to anything, even food.

Don't speak further on this subject until you have done the research. It shows your ignorance. Study first to show yourself approved.

Is this directed at me??

So it is narcissism and ignorance to post a topic and ask for people to share their thoughts? Then I guess MFP is comprised of all narcissistic and ignorant people...?

You may want to take a look in the mirror...

Tiernan1212

I don't believe in food addiction. It's a matter of self control and self discipline.
If you are addicted to something, then you start having adverse effects to not having it. When you go without over doing it on bad food, you start to feel better.

After how long? Talk to a true food addict, someone who has been tapping directly into the pleasure centers of their brain and releasing dopamine and pleasure response through the repeated use of food for a while. Talk to them the day after they try to stop overdoing it. Talk to them two days after. Talk to them a week after.

Will they eventually start feeling better? Yes. But then, "true" addicts to drugs, alcohol, etc., start to feel better after a while, too.

I'm totally okay with people saying "I think this is claimed more often than it's true," but saying it doesn't exist at all is ridiculous.

How on earth can doing something you have to do everyday be an addiction? If you are eating more than you need, its not because you are going to fall apart if you don't. It cause you just think it taste good and you can't control yourself (self-control). Your telling me if you lock a "food addict" in a room with nothing but pounds upon pound of something they don't think taste good but is FOOD, they would still eat it all up to satisfy their addiction? Stop it!

...I've eaten food out of my trash can before just because it was food. YOU stop it.

Haha! Good stuff!

Okay, she's not joking or trying to be funny. She's being serious, and it's tragic that someone would have to experience that.

The only positive thing I can think to say to you is to be thankful that you have never personally experienced an addiction or compulsion to food as seriously as many people in this thread have.

bcattoes

How on earth can doing something you have to do everyday be an addiction? If you are eating more than you need, its not because you are going to fall apart if you don't. It cause you just think it taste good and you can't control yourself (self-control). Your telling me if you lock a "food addict" in a room with nothing but pounds upon pound of something they don't think taste good but is FOOD, they would still eat it all up to satisfy their addiction? Stop it!

Is this a serious post? I don't think you understand the meaning of the word "addiction".

LiminalAscendance

I don't believe in food addiction. It's a matter of self control and self discipline.
If you are addicted to something, then you start having adverse effects to not having it. When you go without over doing it on bad food, you start to feel better.

After how long? Talk to a true food addict, someone who has been tapping directly into the pleasure centers of their brain and releasing dopamine and pleasure response through the repeated use of food for a while. Talk to them the day after they try to stop overdoing it. Talk to them two days after. Talk to them a week after.

Will they eventually start feeling better? Yes. But then, "true" addicts to drugs, alcohol, etc., start to feel better after a while, too.

I'm totally okay with people saying "I think this is claimed more often than it's true," but saying it doesn't exist at all is ridiculous.

How on earth can doing something you have to do everyday be an addiction? If you are eating more than you need, its not because you are going to fall apart if you don't. It cause you just think it taste good and you can't control yourself (self-control). Your telling me if you lock a "food addict" in a room with nothing but pounds upon pound of something they don't think taste good but is FOOD, they would still eat it all up to satisfy their addiction? Stop it!

...I've eaten food out of my trash can before just because it was food. YOU stop it.

Okay, show of hands...how many of you guys have actually willingly eaten food out of a trash receptacle (non-hygienic, of course, or it doesn't count).

This may actually change my viewpoint on the whole "food addiction" thing...

nicoleisme

don't you think its more a self control issue than an actual addiction?

Using that logic, there would be no such thing as addiction. Meth-heads just lack the self -control to stop doing meth. Cigarette smokers just lack self-control to stop smoking. Addiction is a very real thing, and I do believe in food addiction. I was a smoker and quit cold turkey...yet I can't quit cold turkey. Ok, that was bad to make a joke about it, but addiction is real, it just depends how your body reacts. I stopped smoking and thought nothing of it, while others struggle daily...but food has a grip on me, which I have been working on over the years. So maybe you just don't have the same physiological reaction to food as others, that doesn't mean it's not real.

Oh, and not to be a **** but it's wolf...people wolf things down, no one woofs anything, except Buzz's girlfriend.

This^^ I smoked for a few years and was able to quit cold turkey because I was never addicted, I just didn't get addicted or had the urge to smoke like other people have said they had. I enjoyed it but didn't do it in excess. Food though I have a million times more the urge to eat no matter how hungry I am, I think I'd personally call it an addiction. Now does that mean I think it's an excuse? Not at all, I just think that's the fact of what it is, that doesn't make it a reason to not be healthy. For me it makes it more of a reason to try and be healthy.

Some_Watery_Tart

I am probably going to catch some major flack for this one, but oh well what the hell, I am used to it.

This is like beginning a sentence with "no offense, but". If you have to start your comment like that, you probably shouldn't continue.

I do not think that anyone can be "addicted to food", it just seems like a strange concept to me. I mean if you do not have that food will you have withdrawals? I just think that it is an excuse that people use to tell themselves that they can't eat certain foods, or to just blame their obesity issue on something else, or to cover up an underlying mental health issue. I mean people binge, but to me that seems tied into more of a mental health issue or just bad relationship with food.

I don't have withdrawal when I quit drinking. So by your logic, that means alcoholics just lack self control or have a bad relationship with alcohol. Right? :huh:

you have obviously never seen a true alcoholic go through withdrawals then, I assume?

Oh is it that obvious? I take it we're friends and you know about my 10 year marriage to an extremely abusive alcoholic? You've heard about how I stayed with him through multiple sobriety attempts? How I cleaned up his puke and changed his sweaty, urine-soaked sheets when he went through DTs (and also during his benders)? I told you all about how I went through this only to find out that he was meaner when he was sober? No? Ok, then you can keep your observations to yourself and retire your judgy pants because you're not very good at the "obvious" game.

What I said was *I* do not go through withdrawals when *I* quit drinking. So, again, by *your* logic, it must not be real. Just because you don't experience withdrawal, that doesn't mean others don't.

And you're catching flack because you asked for it. I suspect you're enjoying it too.

Some_Watery_Tart

Hmmmm overeact much ...? You do not even know my story, yet you seem to think to know what I have been through? Try being 50 pounds overweight, out of shape, and having to go through a year of chemotherapy and radiation...

Your probably just trolling...but seriously bro....grow the F up....

Oh the irony! It hurts, OP. :laugh:

madworld1

I am probably going to catch some major flack for this one, but oh well what the hell, I am used to it.

Reading through the threads I am reading a lot of "I can't eat carbs because it make me binge on more carbs", or "I can't eat sugary foods, because then I want more sugary foods and can't stop myself" or "I have to eat clean because I have a food addiction..." there are more but I think I have laid out the general thoughts that I have seen on the subject.

So I think back to when I was like 200# and totally out of shape...I was never "addicted to food" I mean I just ate way too much of foods that I liked and did zero exercise. It was not like I eat some pasta, and was like "oh, my god I have to have more pasta" I would just cook a crap ton of it and eat all of it. Now, I still eat pasta, ice cream etc on occasion, I just eat less of it and watch my calories and macros goals or the day. Its not like I make a serving of pasta and immediately want to make five more servings to eat. I have ice cream in the freezer right now, if I have a servicing I do not woof down the whole pint...

I do not think that anyone can be "addicted to food", it just seems like a strange concept to me. I mean if you do not have that food will you have withdrawals? I just think that it is an excuse that people use to tell themselves that they can't eat certain foods, or to just blame their obesity issue on something else, or to cover up an underlying mental health issue. I mean people binge, but to me that seems tied into more of a mental health issue or just bad relationship with food.

So I will toss it out to the MFP crowed..what do you all think ...food addictions yes, no, or total garbage..?????

I'm not going to go into a lot of psychological jargon here.

In a nut shell, yes I truly believe that people can be "food addicts." Food can cause "good" feelings in much the same way drugs and alcohol cause "good" feelings. People often turn to food in the same way they do drugs... to compensate for something else.

Just because you've never experienced a "food addiction" doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. Do you believe in drug addiction? Surely, you do. It's a very similar concept.

IDK I do not get a "high" from eating, so I can't really see the connection to drug addiction. When you smoke weed, snort cocaine whatever you get a "high" that you then in turn crave more...

Maybe if I experienced that with food I could relate to what you are saying...

Look up and study the nucleus accumbens. Maybe you will be a little more open minded once you educate yourself instead of going off of experience (or the lack thereof).

jclark0523

I don't believe in food addiction. It's a matter of self control and self discipline.
If you are addicted to something, then you start having adverse effects to not having it. When you go without over doing it on bad food, you start to feel better.

After how long? Talk to a true food addict, someone who has been tapping directly into the pleasure centers of their brain and releasing dopamine and pleasure response through the repeated use of food for a while. Talk to them the day after they try to stop overdoing it. Talk to them two days after. Talk to them a week after.

Will they eventually start feeling better? Yes. But then, "true" addicts to drugs, alcohol, etc., start to feel better after a while, too.

I'm totally okay with people saying "I think this is claimed more often than it's true," but saying it doesn't exist at all is ridiculous.

How on earth can doing something you have to do everyday be an addiction? If you are eating more than you need, its not because you are going to fall apart if you don't. It cause you just think it taste good and you can't control yourself (self-control). Your telling me if you lock a "food addict" in a room with nothing but pounds upon pound of something they don't think taste good but is FOOD, they would still eat it all up to satisfy their addiction? Stop it!

...I've eaten food out of my trash can before just because it was food. YOU stop it.

Haha! Good stuff!

Okay, she's not joking or trying to be funny. She's being serious, and it's tragic that someone would have to experience that.

The only positive thing I can think to say to you is to be thankful that you have never personally experienced an addiction or compulsion to food as seriously as many people in this thread have.

If she seriously ate food out of the trash, then I'm sure it was because it was something she thought tasted good and couldn't control herself (self-control). Hardly think it was a green bean laying on trash and because of a strong addiction to food, it got devoured.

sobriquet84

90% of the posts in this thread make me want to repeatedly bang my head against the wall.

hey, i have an idea-- let's start a thread on post partum depression, or on obsessive-compulsive disorder, or on pica, or on seasonal affective disorder, or on post-traumatic stress disorder, or on pyromania, or on borderline personality disorder... and invite ANYONE WHO HAS ANYTHING TO SAY ABOUT IT BUT NO ACTUAL CLUE AS TO WHAT THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT to weigh in.

sounds brilliant!!!!!

ndj1979

90% of the posts in this thread make me want to repeatedly bang my head against the wall.

hey, i have an idea-- let's start a thread on post partum depression, or on obsessive-compulsive disorder, or on pica, or on seasonal affective disorder, or on post-traumatic stress disorder, or on pyromania, or on borderline personality disorder... and invite ANYONE WHO HAS ANYTHING TO SAY ABOUT IT BUT NO ACTUAL CLUE AS TO WHAT THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT to weigh in.

sounds brilliant!!!!!

its a free country, you can start whatever thread you choose..

If you do not like this one, then find another one...

Ed98043

If she seriously ate food out of the trash, then I'm sure it was because it was something she thought tasted good and couldn't control herself (self-control). Hardly think it was a green bean laying on trash and because of a strong addiction to food, it got devoured.

It's been proven medically that complex carbohydrates are the substance that activates the area of the brain that's associated with addiction. Green beans don't fall in that category.

Addiction is a strong, often uncontrollable compulsion to do something even though you know it's destructive to yourself and those around you. It provides a temporary "high" and a desire to reacquire the high when it subsides. People who are addicted to drugs will commit crimes and even die for their drug. Alcoholics will lose their jobs, their relationships, their health. Sex addicts will destroy their marriages and families. Gamblers will lose everything they own in pursuit of their compulsion. Hoarders will destroy their homes. And food addicts will destroy their bodies and sometimes even eat themselves into immobility. Do you think they want these things to happen? Or is it possible that they have a compulsion that you just don't have and therefore can't understand?

So if you weren't so self-disciplined would you be lying on a bed somewhere weighing 500, 800 or 1,000 lbs?

I've never seen or experienced a lot of things. Doesn't mean they don't exist.

jimmmer

90% of the posts in this thread make me want to repeatedly bang my head against the wall.

hey, i have an idea-- let's start a thread on post partum depression, or on obsessive-compulsive disorder, or on pica, or on seasonal affective disorder, or on post-traumatic stress disorder, or on pyromania, or on borderline personality disorder... and invite ANYONE WHO HAS ANYTHING TO SAY ABOUT IT BUT NO ACTUAL CLUE AS TO WHAT THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT to weigh in.

sounds brilliant!!!!!

It's the internet. Nobody has a clue about anything, really. It's all just (more or less or none) well informed opinion. Seems a bit silly to get so steamed up over it....

One thing IS for certain though. This is a food and nutrition issue, not a fitness and exercise one.

jclark0523

So if you weren't so self-disciplined would you be lying on a bed somewhere weighing 500, 800 or 1,000 lbs?

I'm no so "self-disciplined" which is why I'm one of the people using MFP to create awareness and self-control around my bad habits so I can continue to drop weight and create new habits. What I won't do is blame addiction on me deciding to crush a whole pizza in one sitting. I would do that because that pizza tasted good as hell!