Addicted to food, really?
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This is an eating disorder bashing thread. I don't know if someone can be addicted to food, but there are various takes on treating bulimia and binge eating disorder. In bulimia, the purging is a compensating mechanism for binges. Also, one of the things that has the greatest correlation with the incidence of binge eating disorder is a prior focus on calorie counting and/or food restriction. Anyway, some therapies are cognitive-behavioral modifications and some are addiction-based. So, in some circles one is treated for an ED with addiction therapies and in others, one is treated with behavioral modifications. Many health practitioners will ask you to keep a food diary and then eliminate trigger foods until you can successfully include them back in your routine under cognitive behavioral therapy. In addiction-based therapy, you quit those particular foods.
I've been in treatment for ED's since I was a kid and I don't really appreciate the bro-science about neurology and lack of ED awareness on this site. It's pretty messed up.
Addiction is a lack of willpower, dummies. Of course, that's a trait of addiction. It's not the only trait. However, if it was so easy to get over, people wouldn't be throwing up in the toilet and purging with laxatives. Would you rather not eat a bag of frozen peas still frozen or dried uncooked rice vs. throwing up in the toilet? No one consciously wants to eat frozen or uncooked food and then barf after. Sorry for anyone I just triggered but this whole thread is a trigger.
These boards are a great way for the uninformed to judge others and make themselves feel superior and frankly, it's detrimental to the recovery of many, but I'm sure you like it that way.0 -
Wow!! Really!! I'm so happy that those of you that feel there is no such thing as food addiction have never had to deal with it. Its not a sob story as someone put it or a simple lack of willpower. Nothing like getting up on your high horse and looking down on others for having there personal struggles! Just because YOU may not have an addiction to food or something else for that matter does NOT mean that it doesn't exist! I personally deal with this and know others do as well and this type of attitude from others feels absolutely like a punch in the gut! Thanks for that I really needed it today. And yes maybe I shouldn't have clicked on the post but I did out of curiosity. Regretfully
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It's not an addiction, it's a lack of self control. People don't have withdrawls from not eating one more oreo! It's an excuse because they can't control themselves. And before anyone jumps all over me for this, everyone on this site has had this problem at one point or another or we wouldn't be here. Some have just learned self control along the way...
agreed! if i snack on food i know i shouldnt, or eat more than i know i should eat.. its because im lacking the will power..its not because im even HUNGRY!0 -
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!
You're not addicted to food. Me neither. I got fat from pleasure-eating, and ignored my expanding size by denying that it was all that bad. But I do know that eating certain foods satisfies something that goes beyond taste and hunger satiation...and I can see how some people would become addicted to that feeling and have it turn into a self-harming compulsion.0 -
I wish more people took classes on addiction. Certain foods probably set off the reward & pleasure centers in the brain like nicotine and cocaine do. Your body was DESIGNED to eat so you may feel "rewarded" by doing so, making you want to do it again. People are generally predisposed to addiction. Not everyone who tries cocaine gets addicted to it, so everyone wouldn't get addicted to food either.0
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Actually, there is such a thing as an addiction to food. After all, like any addiction, eating triggers the pleasure sensors in your brain. Therefore, for some people who have an emotional relationship with food, and use it as a crutch, they do compulsively overeat just to make themselves feel better, of course in that case there are other factors that apply as well.
Just because it seems unheard of to you, doesn't mean that it does not exist. There are all sorts of addictions, having an addiction to food, is one of them. However, instead of focusing on the addiction itself, focus on the triggers instead. A lot of it dwells from ineffective coping mechanisms and not being able to bounce back from adversities.
Anyway just my two-cents.0 -
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.
[snip]
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.
[snip]
Comparing drug addictions (withdrawal from which, can kill you in the more severe cases) to food and sex?
Who even needs to rebut that?
In cases of true addiction though, and I'm not one to judge what's real or isn't, the thing the person is addicted to isn't what's important. It's the reason behind it. Addicts tend to have a metaphorical hole inside them, some sort of emptiness. Some fill it with food, some fill it with drugs, some fill it with sex, and some even fill it with religion. That's the essence of addition.
Sure, you have a "hole" inside you which causes you to do drugs, religion, sex (just realized I was an addict btw).
I'm not talking about why you started. If I do drugs because of some "hole," I'm not immediately an addict.
I won't argue that this "hole" you refer to is why many individuals eat to excess.
That doesn't make it an addiction.0 -
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.
When a gambling addict (and this is labeled as an addiction in the DSM-V) quits gambling, do they have withdrawal symptoms?
You are confusing physiological addictions with behavioral addictions. Physiological addictions, such as addictions to heroin, nicotine, or whatever, can cause physical withdrawal symptoms.
Behavioral addictions may not.
If you can't stop yourself from eating something, you can put whatever label on it you like - lack of willpower, addiction, whatever. The fact is, you can't stop yourself from eating something.0 -
quote: 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...
Response: I have eaten food out of trash can, yes, many times. The idea is you throw it away so you won't eat it. But, then you dig it out of the trash can and eat it. So now, I have to throw something chemical on it or something very germy has to make contact if it's a trigger food for me in order to prevent me from eating it. However, I have also eaten lots of uncooked food just because it was there and nothing else was. I appreciate your making up arbitrary rules about what counts and what doesn't count about disordered eating. You are clearly an expert and a genius.0 -
People use the word "addiction" to justify a lack of willpower
All addictions are a lack of willpower.0 -
Well aren't you special. Just because you've never struggled with this does not mean it doesn't exist. If I had a pint of ice cream in my freezer, I would feel compelled to eat the entire thing RIGHT NOW. I wouldn't call it an "addiction," but it's definitely a form of disordered eating. It's just easier not to have it in my kitchen.
This is my opinion also.0 -
bump0
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I don't know if I believe in food "addiction", but I think it takes a very different mindset and relationship with food to become morbidly obese (as I was). For me, it was not just a matter of taking a huge serving and eating all of it (which I did), but a weird compulsion to eat more and more of everything. I could take A serving of ice cream, but if there was more in the freezer, I would feel compelled to eat it. I wouldn't consider it addiction, but it definitely stemmed from a bad relationship with food.
As I crossed from the obese to overweight BMI category, that "compulsion" has pretty much gone away. I don't know it it was the months losing the first 60 to build new "habits" or if having less fat on me played a part or maybe crossing into territory where it seemed "real" that I might actually reach a healthy weight. I really don't know. But I know that the last 20 lbs I have lost have been very different mentally than the first 60-food now feels controllable, where it really wasn't before.
This has been my experience also, though I am only down 30 pounds.
It took me about 2.5 months to feel like I had achieved some level of control over what I eat. Previously, when I saw free snack foods in the office I would think ,"OH MY GOD I WANT TO EAT THAT SO BAD" and now it is more like, "I don't eat that stuff any more."
Often I still break down and eat things I shouldn't that put me over my calorie limit though. I just start over the next day.0 -
I think food addiction is a completely legit illness . . . but I think it generally goes hand in hand with deeper emotional issues. I personally think it's a form of OCD, but that's just me.
And have you watched the show My Strange Addiction? People can be addicted to *anything.* Addiction is basically a way of saying that if you don't have or do something, you feel off or not right or like you're going to die or something like that. It doesn't matter if you won't actually die, it's the sense that you will that makes it an addiciton . . . if that makes sense.
At any rate, people who are addicted to food need to address the underlying issues before they're really going to be able to do anything about it. Treat the illness, not the symptom.0 -
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...
did you seriously just start an argument with "its a free country"???
what are we, 12???0 -
I believe what you are suffering from is the same condition I suffered from...overeating...
Everyone who overeats is suffering from overeating.
The question is, why are they overeating?0 -
OP I don't know. I personally do not have a food addiction. I've had cravings. I make poor food choices when I feel stressed.
I LOVE ice cream. I could eat it every day. But I certainly don't have withdrawal symptoms when I don't have ice cream.
When I think of an addiction I think of ONE thing that someone has to have. Smoking, alcohol, pills.....
So if someone has a food addiction do they crave/over eat only eat one food?
Or is it that they just make poor food choices and oversize portions?0 -
At any rate, people who are addicted to food need to address the underlying issues before they're really going to be able to do anything about it. Treat the illness, not the symptom.
^^^^ This.0 -
Food addiction is very real, just the same as alcohol or drugs. If you go to the online site for OA, (http://www.therecoverygroup.org) and read their stories, then read some of the stories in the book "Alcoholics Anonymous", you can see striking similarities. The only difference is that OA's 'self medicate' using food, whereas AA's 'self medicate' using alcohol. Feel free to check out their site. I'll be more than happy to provide more info.
not rubbish . not garbage. not BS. addictions are REAL....0 -
At any rate, people who are addicted to food need to address the underlying issues before they're really going to be able to do anything about it. Treat the illness, not the symptom.
^^^^ This.
AGREED!!! the addiction is a symptom of a greater, underlying issue.0
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