Addicted to food, really?

SailorKnightWing

I have never been addicted to food.

I have been addicted to certain video games.

It is entirely possible to become addicted to something that does not have an addictive ingredient you ingest.

Elliesque

Well lets see...there are addictions to alcohol, drugs, video games, porn, sex, and probably a whole slew of other things. I don't see why food couldn't fall into that category. Anything that is considered a pleasure has the potential to become an addiction, especially to those who are predisposed to having addictive personalities.

maillemaker

I'd say food addiction exists, but only for a very select few. Like those who are so morbidly obese that they're incapable of standing up. If food has brought you to such a miserable existence and you STILL continue to eat in the same way, then it's likely an addiction.

I'd say you don't have to be morbidly obese to be addicted to food, any more than you have to be bankrupt to be addicted to gambling.

The key signature to addiction is wanting to stop the behavior and not being able to do so.

It doesn't matter if you are 10 pounds overweight or 100. If you want to stop eating but cannot stop yourself from doing so, that's an addiction.

FitCanuckChick

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:

this.

And I will add, an alcoholic can give up alcohol, cold turkey, as can a smoker or drug user or gambler. A food addict must learn to have a healthy relationship with food. So, in my opinion if you have a food addiction problem it is the most difficult to overcome because you actually need your drug to live.

Many addictions start in order to deal with other issues....stress, mental health....food is no different. By the way, I have struggled for most of my life....not adult life, my entire life with food addiction. Certain foods are triggers and once started I could not stop. Even in my childhood I can't remember a time when I didn't do this. I would sneak food. And I am not talking about cookies or chocolate, I would seek foods so I wouldn't get caught....a slice of bread, crackers, anything. Usually the most plainest boring food u can imagine just so my parents wouldn't notice and I wouldn't get caught. I could not stop. I look back on it now and as a child I was experiencing what alcoholics, gamblers, drug addicts suffer. Do anything to get your fix.

So to the op and all the supporters of this don't you dare sit up on your high horse making assumptions about me or others that have struggled with this saying its lack of self control because it is not for many out there and on this forum.

joselo2

You might not have been addicted to food but i feel this accurately describes me, because i get so upset and distress and panic if I can't have what I feel is an adequate amount of food, and sometimes get real panic if I can't binge, like for real it's an emotional thing, it's deeper than just liking food.

Quieau

I don't have time to read 12 pages of pop-faux-internet psychology. Saying that it's a "mental problem" is absolutely correct. Addictions are mental problems. DUH! Saying that it's "just an excuse for overeating" is bull****. There's a difference between an excuse and a reason. If this were an excuse, those people wouldn't be taking responsibility for their recovery and coming to MFP to talk to you people about their problems—if they were using it as an excuse. It's a reason. A perspective. A position original and unique to them whether you can relate to it or not.

I can drink beer once a year without ever craving it. Does that mean alcoholism is bull****? NO. I put down cigarettes without a second look after 20 years of smoking. Does that mean you cannot be addicted to them? NO.

Just because something doesn't happen to YOU doesn't mean it doesn't exist. You can sit in judgement of people all you want but the fact of the matter is that we ALL have something we struggle with, some to greater or lesser extents than others. Sometimes you don't understand someone's behavior, but it's not your place to understand it unless it has some bearing on you personally. Maybe your problem isn't obvious. Maybe it's just a tiny little **** or something else you can hide. But we all have our 'thing,' don't we? Tossing around these psychological theories as form of recreation to make yourself feel superior to those struggling beside you is ... well, bent.

An addiction is defined not be the regularity of indulgence alone, but by the effect it has on you, your life, your loved ones. Once something goes from being purely pleasurable and harmless to having negative consequences and the person responsible cannot manage it alone, it's an addiction. You have no right to judge the validity of something you claim to have never experienced and that you know absolutely nothing about. We are ALL special snowflakes, believe it or not. We ALL deserve the benefit of the doubt and owe a hand up of support to ANYONE who has the courage to come to this site and especially throw their personal thoughts and feelings out in front of a crowd they know are going to tear them to shreds like a pack of coyotes.

And it's NOT just your mind. Junk food is pumped full of all kinds of chemicals DESIGNED to make you eat more, like MSG. It comes under dozens of different names and is in probably everything you eat that's packaged if not organic. Check out MSGTruth.org for well-cited documentation (click on "Disease states" and then "obesity" and "Diabetes"). Just like cigarettes, which are soaked in 100+ chemicals to ensure your addiction and make them burn faster, junk food is engineered to keep you eating. Can some people fight becoming addicted to MSG? OF course they can, just like some can never be bothered by alcohol, nicotine or other drugs. But that doesn't mean it's not happening, or that some of our compadres are not suffering.

FitCanuckChick

People use the word "addiction" to justify a lack of willpower

That's ridiculous.

I would say I have a sugar/carb addiction - in terms of if I have a little, I want more and feel completely out of control. It's all I can think about - and when I'm trying to eat those things moderation I'm like - okay, I had as much as is reasonable for today. And then I feel like my brain turns into a 2 year old. "is it tomorrow yet?" "Can I have some more now?" "How about now?". All day long.

But I have pretty damn good willpower according to most people. I don't eat the things that trigger me to want to eat out of control (sugar/starchy carbs/bread/etc.), and haven't for the better part of a year. I've lost the weight I wanted to lose and feel great.

Is it humanly possible to eat those things in moderation? Of course - some people do it all the time. Is it possible for me? Not really. I've managed it on occasion, for short periods of time, but I have to be a singularly obsessed person, absolutely focused on calories and that feels like it takes up all my mental energy. And quite honestly, I'm not a fun person to be around when I tried that. If I don't eat added sugar/white bread/etc. at all? Once it's out of my system it's easy. I don't crave it, don't miss it, don't need it. What I'm doing now feels very sustainable. When I try to eat the foods that I feel "addicted" to in moderation - that does not feel sustainable to me whatsoever.

I think people with food addiction type issues have some of the best willpower (me included). We know what triggers us and we know what can be a problem if we do give into it.

maillemaker

so I guess you are saying it cuts both ways...addiction for some, excuse for others..?

Many people with addictions have excuses for their behavior. Or they may realize they have a problem, but will not admit it to themselves or others. This is what happens when you are denial.

Recognizing and dealing with addictions is not the same thing as excusing bad behavior.

When an alcoholic or gambler admits they have an addiction problem and they seek help and through that help they beat their addiction, that's a good thing. On the other hand, if someone says they have an addiction and uses this to justify continuing the behavior, then that's a bad thing.

The real problem that these threads expose is there is a big social stigma problem with obesity. Obese people are just considered lazy.

SkinnyFatAlbert

I'm guessing the people who have always been relatively fit or have only been "a few pounds" overweight don't believe in food addiction.

Also, is it possible some people are addicted to exercise?

EmilyJackCO

while i do think there is a thing as a food addiction (for say 1 item not "food" in general), i think most people claim they are addicted to food to explain their total lack of self control.

I think there are some mental issues that are passed off as a food addiction.

I think this very much sums up what I was thinking.

I do believe that there are people who have developed real addictions to food, but I think it's a LOT more rare than we are seeing on an hourly basis in the forums. Addiction is a very real change in how the brain processes the chemicals in the body. There are some people who are more prone to addiction than others due to genetics. There are also those that are more susceptible to addiction due to circumstance or mental issues and trauma.

I was lucky enough to have all of those factors collide and have been an addict. It's not fun. It's not willpower. It's not an easy choice. And it's not instantaneous. My poison never was food, coming from a background of poverty and malnutrition, but allllll the other fun wonderful stuff out there that we get into as adults. Do I believe that someone can become addicted to food in that same manner? I absolutely do. Is it as easy as, oh I just love food? HELL NO. It's so much more than that - you have a physical need for whatever derives that dopamine high - and more and more of it, because your brain does get inured to it. Which is how I used to be able to drink Navy Seals under the frickin' bar. And that was when I was young - you really don't want to know how bad it got.... and no, it wasn't just booze, either.

So yeah - I think food addiction is very real for much the same reasons, and rooted in the very same things that substance addiction is. You don't have to have the genetic predisposition to walk down that road either. I knew I was destined to be an addict, but I didn't think a few drinks now and then would hurt me. 6 years ago, I was going through a six-pack a night polished off with a half-fifth of Stoli or Single-Malt. Funny, how when I escaped the cycle that drove me to that for most of my 35 years at the time.... I haven't had much of an issue. I can drink one here or there - I choose not to. I can't drink two, because my brain still works the same way - and I tiptoed towards relapse not too terribly long ago.

I can only dare imagine what a similar person who has become addicted to food in order to function the same way that I was to alcohol and whatever drug du jour. Because it's so much more insidious. It's so much more difficult to treat. You can't walk away, you have to eat to survive. What? You only eat stuff you don't like so you don't trip the dopamine release? That's no way to live. I can't even think what they have gone through to get to that point, knowing what I do. I do know that it's not an every day occurence. You can love your chocolate and ice cream and cookies and Nilla Wafers w/buttercream frosting (by the same token, it can be your steak & potatoes and fried chicken & mac & cheese too - it ain't just sugar) and still not be addicted to food. It is when one gets to the point that they cannot cope normally without having whatever it is that triggers that chemical release in the brain that it REQUIRES to function. I'm not a therapist and I'm not trained in this - I just lived it.... and that's how I understand the addiction cycle.

But the truth is - addiction doesn't happen in a vacuum and it very much has triggers within mental or emotional or even chemical responses within the brain. And I think that it's something that we need to understand a lot more when it comes to bandying about self-diagnoses. I really don't think food addiction is something that can be effectively diagnosed or treated without professional help - the same with eating disorders (and no, I don't equate the two, having ALSO had eating disorders).

I hope I contributed something in my TL;DR post - I think this is an important topic and hope it doesn't go too far down the rabbit hole.

ndj1979

I don't have time to read 12 pages of pop-faux-internet psychology. Saying that it's a "mental problem" is absolutely correct. Addictions are mental problems. DUH! Saying that it's "just an excuse for overeating" is bull****. There's a difference between an excuse and a reason. If this were an excuse, those people wouldn't be taking responsibility for their recovery and coming to MFP to talk to you people about their problems—if they were using it as an excuse. It's a reason. A perspective. A position original and unique to them whether you can relate to it or not.

I can drink beer once a year without ever craving it. Does that mean alcoholism is bull****? NO. I put down cigarettes without a second look after 20 years of smoking. Does that mean you cannot be addicted to them? NO.

Just because something doesn't happen to YOU doesn't mean it doesn't exist. You can sit in judgement of people all you want but the fact of the matter is that we ALL have something we struggle with, some to greater or lesser extents than others. Sometimes you don't understand someone's behavior, but it's not your place to understand it unless it has some bearing on you personally. Maybe your problem isn't obvious. Maybe it's just a tiny little **** or something else you can hide. But we all have our 'thing,' don't we? Tossing around these psychological theories as form of recreation to make yourself feel superior to those struggling beside you is ... well, bent.

An addiction is defined not be the regularity of indulgence alone, but by the effect it has on you, your life, your loved ones. Once something goes from being purely pleasurable and harmless to having negative consequences and the person responsible cannot manage it alone, it's an addiction. You have no right to judge the validity of something you claim to have never experienced and that you know absolutely nothing about. We are ALL special snowflakes, believe it or not. We ALL deserve the benefit of the doubt and owe a hand up of support to ANYONE who has the courage to come to this site and especially throw their personal thoughts and feelings out in front of a crowd they know are going to tear them to shreds like a pack of coyotes.

And it's NOT just your mind. Junk food is pumped full of all kinds of chemicals DESIGNED to make you eat more, like MSG. It comes under dozens of different names and is in probably everything you eat that's packaged if not organic. Check out MSGTruth.org for well-cited documentation (click on "Disease states" and then "obesity" and "Diabetes"). Just like cigarettes, which are soaked in 100+ chemicals to ensure your addiction and make them burn faster, junk food is engineered to keep you eating. Can some people fight becoming addicted to MSG? OF course they can, just like some can never be bothered by alcohol, nicotine or other drugs. But that doesn't mean it's not happening, or that some of our compadres are not suffering.

Yet another MFP over reaction .

I never judged anyone. I posed a question and asked for thoughts on the subject. If I was judging, I would of just said that all "Obese people use food addiction as an excuse to over eat or something like that..."

As far as your last statement of course "blame the evil corporations" because they had the common sense to make food taste good...would you buy food if it tasted like crap?

maillemaker

Also, is it possible some people are addicted to exercise?

Yes.

chunkydunk714

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.

Fantastic post. Thanks!

A-FKN-MEN!

swhiteism

I believe it's a psychological addiction, just like sex and smoking pot. Your body may not literally be chemically addicted to it but you can't escape the compulsion to find that euphoric feeling it brings you. I have never considered myself addicted to food, but I was definitely a compulsive over-eater. I think people have a problem with those terms because they assume the person accrediting it to themselves are trying to cast blame on someone or something out of their control. In my case, that's wrong. I don't blame anyone but me. I never have.

Quieau

Yet another MFP over reaction .

I never judged anyone. I posed a question and asked for thoughts on the subject. If I was judging, I would of just said that all "Obese people use food addiction as an excuse to over eat or something like that..."

As far as your last statement of course "blame the evil corporations" because they had the common sense to make food taste good...would you buy food if it tasted like crap?

And I wasn't addressing my reply ONLY to you or I would have done so in a private message, or called you out by name. The nature of forums is the group discussion aspect. I was responding to several perspectives in one post in a general sense. You asked for thoughts, and I shared my thoughts. Feeling sensitive?

Blame the evil corporations? I never such a thing. I said that the food is laced with addictive poison. I don't buy it. I don't buy food that tastes like crap either. I buy tasty, delicious and nutritious food that ALSO is good for me and not laced with toxins. That's an option too! Just because a corporation makes something doesn't mean I should have to buy it or eat it. But those who do have the right to a) know what's in it and b) know the effects of what's in it. If food has chemicals in it DESIGNED to addict people to it, they have the right to know about it. So yes, I do hold corporations responsible for not clearly labeling their foods and for not being honest about what's in them. Once the labels reflect reality, I then transfer responsibility for that decision on buying/eating to the informed consumer. Personally, I'm already informed but there are a lot of people out there now who aren't and are continually blaming themselves (and being blamed by others) for their helpless addiction to chemicals they don't even know are there, or understand how they work. When talking about taking responsibility, somehow the (often uninformed) individual is usually held to a higher standard than the (often secretive and deceptive) profit-making producers of the food.

But food is not addictive. Those chemicals are just there to make it more nutritious, right?!

Quasita

They recently did a study what shows a connection between certain foods and the opiate receptors in the brain, indicating a real and clear presence of addiction in certain individuals. Food addiction can be a chemical dependency on par with mild opiate narcotic addictions and shouldn't be shrugged off as "lack of control."

maillemaker

I do believe that there are people who have developed real addictions to food, but I think it's a LOT more rare than we are seeing on an hourly basis in the forums.

I'm not so sure. I tend to think that this is far more common than people think.

I think the compulsion people have to eat our modern, engineered, tasty, calorie-dense foods is one of the reasons why the majority of people in the United States are overweight. The fact is, much of our food supply has been specifically designed to be very compelling and enjoyable to eat.

Now some people may not know they are addicted because they have not tried to stop eating. If they aren't aware of what is happening to them, or they simply don't care, they may never try to change their eating habits and discover that it is hard to do.

But there are more overweight people in this country than not. It's not like fat people don't know they are fat and don't feel bad about it. Our country glorifies skinny people and degrades fat people. And it's not like they don't know how to solve the problem.

So why don't they? If it's easy to control what you eat, why are so many people failing? Why do so many people intentionally trying to lose weight fail? Yes, it's about lack of self-control. But why is that self so hard to control??? What is it that is so damn compelling about the food that people can't maintain a healthy calorie load?

It's not hunger. Hunger might be the straw that breaks a dieter's back, but hunger is not what drives you to eat a quarter-gallon of ice cream in one sitting. So why would someone do it?

This is not one or two lazy people. This is most of the United States.

hookilau

maillemaker

But food is not addictive. Those chemicals are just there to make it more nutritious, right?!

I don't think there are many, if any, foods that have chemicals in them that cause physiological addictions.

However, there is absolutely no doubt that manufactured food is an engineered product, with very specific design criteria in mind when it is created.

Manufactured foods are designed to be cheap to manufacture, cheap to transport, have long shelf lives, and be very compelling/tasty to eat.

And it's not just a shot in the dark when they do this - there is a boatload of R&D money that goes into taste tests and psychology right down to the color of the box and what shelf on the grocery store it sits on all designed to maximize consumption and thus sales.

So the food most definitely is addictive, but probably not chemically addictive. I

Phildog47

PIZZA! Food addiction at its finest.