Food Addiction

tennisdude2004

So would you say someone that would move money around from accounts to free up funds to pay for their addiction, or sell stuff or pawn things to get money to fuel their addiction, or buy their items that feed their addiction and make elaborate hiding places in the house and garage so their family would not find them, or belligerently abuse family members for over a decade when they attempted to intervene in your life to try to help you from an addiction you would swear you did not have, or become so depressed from the constant struggles you would go through that life just didn't seem like it was worth living so you sat in a chair with a loaded hand gun with the trigger cocked and the barrel in your mouth, crying and pleading to an emptying room that you needed help and no one was listening?? Does any of those constitute that someone may be dealing with an addiction??? or is this just a Disorder for the person suffering these symptoms???

You left out "taking out payday loans then closing your account."


It could be either one. As I said Friday (may have been in the DQ thread), you can have an addiction that does not cause financial/emotional problems (i.e. nicotine). And you can have these sorts of problems as a result of something other than addiction (i.e. compulsive shopping). Or, yeah, you might be a crackhead. Simply having the problems listed above does not necessarily mean the person has an addiction. Any number of behavioral disorders can lead a person down that path.

What's your definition of addition?

an associated physical withdrawal syndrome


ETA: Mine is the definition as it has been known to medicine for hundreds of years. I am not impressed with the new definitions.

Like the symptoms some people experience when cutting sugar?

I'm not aware of a physical withdrawal syndrome related to sugar, considering that our bodies run on sugar.

no glucose = death

Okay excessive dietary glucose.

Your body can function without any dietary glucose, this would not result in death. A small amount of dietary glucose is optimal though.

Have a read through this and let me know what bits you disagree with.

http://foodaddictioninstitute.org/scientific-research/physical-craving-and-food-addiction-a-scientific-review/

WendyTerry420

So would you say someone that would move money around from accounts to free up funds to pay for their addiction, or sell stuff or pawn things to get money to fuel their addiction, or buy their items that feed their addiction and make elaborate hiding places in the house and garage so their family would not find them, or belligerently abuse family members for over a decade when they attempted to intervene in your life to try to help you from an addiction you would swear you did not have, or become so depressed from the constant struggles you would go through that life just didn't seem like it was worth living so you sat in a chair with a loaded hand gun with the trigger cocked and the barrel in your mouth, crying and pleading to an emptying room that you needed help and no one was listening?? Does any of those constitute that someone may be dealing with an addiction??? or is this just a Disorder for the person suffering these symptoms???

You left out "taking out payday loans then closing your account."


It could be either one. As I said Friday (may have been in the DQ thread), you can have an addiction that does not cause financial/emotional problems (i.e. nicotine). And you can have these sorts of problems as a result of something other than addiction (i.e. compulsive shopping). Or, yeah, you might be a crackhead. Simply having the problems listed above does not necessarily mean the person has an addiction. Any number of behavioral disorders can lead a person down that path.

What's your definition of addition?

an associated physical withdrawal syndrome


ETA: Mine is the definition as it has been known to medicine for hundreds of years. I am not impressed with the new definitions.

Like the symptoms some people experience when cutting sugar?

I'm not aware of a physical withdrawal syndrome related to sugar, considering that our bodies run on sugar.

no glucose = death

Okay excessive dietary glucose.

Your body can function without any dietary glucose, this would not result in death. A small amount of dietary glucose is optimal though.

Have a read through this and let me know what bits you disagree with.

http://foodaddictioninstitute.org/scientific-research/physical-craving-and-food-addiction-a-scientific-review/

Actually, I believe that groups like that have an agenda.


ETA: And having looked at the article now, I notice that it *does* clearly indicate that there is no evidence that sucrose, sodium, wheat, butter, etc. have any associated withdrawal syndrome.

tennisdude2004

So would you say someone that would move money around from accounts to free up funds to pay for their addiction, or sell stuff or pawn things to get money to fuel their addiction, or buy their items that feed their addiction and make elaborate hiding places in the house and garage so their family would not find them, or belligerently abuse family members for over a decade when they attempted to intervene in your life to try to help you from an addiction you would swear you did not have, or become so depressed from the constant struggles you would go through that life just didn't seem like it was worth living so you sat in a chair with a loaded hand gun with the trigger cocked and the barrel in your mouth, crying and pleading to an emptying room that you needed help and no one was listening?? Does any of those constitute that someone may be dealing with an addiction??? or is this just a Disorder for the person suffering these symptoms???

You left out "taking out payday loans then closing your account."


It could be either one. As I said Friday (may have been in the DQ thread), you can have an addiction that does not cause financial/emotional problems (i.e. nicotine). And you can have these sorts of problems as a result of something other than addiction (i.e. compulsive shopping). Or, yeah, you might be a crackhead. Simply having the problems listed above does not necessarily mean the person has an addiction. Any number of behavioral disorders can lead a person down that path.

What's your definition of addition?

an associated physical withdrawal syndrome


ETA: Mine is the definition as it has been known to medicine for hundreds of years. I am not impressed with the new definitions.

Like the symptoms some people experience when cutting sugar?

I'm not aware of a physical withdrawal syndrome related to sugar, considering that our bodies run on sugar.

no glucose = death

Okay excessive dietary glucose.

Your body can function without any dietary glucose, this would not result in death. A small amount of dietary glucose is optimal though.

Have a read through this and let me know what bits you disagree with.

http://foodaddictioninstitute.org/scientific-research/physical-craving-and-food-addiction-a-scientific-review/

Actually, I believe that groups like that have an agenda.


ETA: And having looked at the article now, I notice that it *does* clearly indicate that there is no evidence that sucrose, sodium, wheat, butter, etc. have any associated withdrawal syndrome.

You are funny. ????

WendyTerry420

So would you say someone that would move money around from accounts to free up funds to pay for their addiction, or sell stuff or pawn things to get money to fuel their addiction, or buy their items that feed their addiction and make elaborate hiding places in the house and garage so their family would not find them, or belligerently abuse family members for over a decade when they attempted to intervene in your life to try to help you from an addiction you would swear you did not have, or become so depressed from the constant struggles you would go through that life just didn't seem like it was worth living so you sat in a chair with a loaded hand gun with the trigger cocked and the barrel in your mouth, crying and pleading to an emptying room that you needed help and no one was listening?? Does any of those constitute that someone may be dealing with an addiction??? or is this just a Disorder for the person suffering these symptoms???

You left out "taking out payday loans then closing your account."


It could be either one. As I said Friday (may have been in the DQ thread), you can have an addiction that does not cause financial/emotional problems (i.e. nicotine). And you can have these sorts of problems as a result of something other than addiction (i.e. compulsive shopping). Or, yeah, you might be a crackhead. Simply having the problems listed above does not necessarily mean the person has an addiction. Any number of behavioral disorders can lead a person down that path.

What's your definition of addition?

an associated physical withdrawal syndrome


ETA: Mine is the definition as it has been known to medicine for hundreds of years. I am not impressed with the new definitions.

Like the symptoms some people experience when cutting sugar?

I'm not aware of a physical withdrawal syndrome related to sugar, considering that our bodies run on sugar.

no glucose = death

Okay excessive dietary glucose.

Your body can function without any dietary glucose, this would not result in death. A small amount of dietary glucose is optimal though.

Have a read through this and let me know what bits you disagree with.

http://foodaddictioninstitute.org/scientific-research/physical-craving-and-food-addiction-a-scientific-review/

Actually, I believe that groups like that have an agenda.


ETA: And having looked at the article now, I notice that it *does* clearly indicate that there is no evidence that sucrose, sodium, wheat, butter, etc. have any associated withdrawal syndrome.

You are funny. ????

It's your link, not mine, and it clearly contradicts your argument. *shrugs* :smokin:

lemurcat12

To qualify - Im not even sure I believe in food addiction - have never used it as an excuse....but for people to be so outrightly dismissive is really closed minded.

This sums up my opinion as well. I'm sympathetic to the notion of overeating as an addictive behaviour, though unsympathetic (but not dismissive) to the notion of specific nutrients being addictive, but jokingly dismissing an idea that has some amount of scientific evidence behind it and seems to have struck a chord for so many people is... not something a serious person would do.

I'm also not sure if I believe in it or not, in part because I'm still confused about what precisely it's supposed to mean. People seem to be using it in different ways.

I'm also thinking about why it causes so much controversy. Obviously part of it is the idea that people use it as an excuse, to say they have no agency, which I'm sure happens, but it doesn't follow from it being an addiction. As others have said, alcohol addiction is generally conceded to be real, and yet "I can't help but drink all day, I'm an alcoholic" doesn't win sympathy.

I think another part of it is related to my own resistance to the notion that striking a chord means it's real. I am actually quite ready to say that it's real in at least some--relatively rare--cases, such as the one Ed outlined. A substance being at the center of your life, and leading to the sacrifice of everything else--family, job, health, etc.--does sound like classic addiction, although it might be more precise to use some other term, I don't know or really have an opinion or understand why it matters. But the vast majority of references to addiction, including re food, are something much more casual--the laughing reference to being addicted to the internet, for example, or Facebook or some food item you just like a lot or even some specific alcoholic beverage. That people say things like "I'm addicted to McD's" or to fast food, etc., makes me skeptical, not to mention the assertion upthread that most are addicted to something and just don't know it, and I think there's a huge range of how people use the term. If someone who had been addicted to drugs told me that the experience with food was analogous, I would have no reason to doubt that.

Hmm, and related to that, I think another reason a lot of people here might be resistant, at least to the casual use, is that real food addiction seems likely to be relatively rare, and becoming overweight is, on the other hand, increasingly common. Obviously, you don't have to have an addiction to overeat routinely enough to gain weight. Yet the addiction argument seems at least in part intended to associate the two, to suggest that there are some foods that are like drugs, dangerous, that if you don't stay away from you will become unable to eat normally or appreciate other foods. That's a claim that might be true for individuals, but it's hardly true for all, or even most, people who happen to become overweight.