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Food Addiction - A Different Perspective

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  • cory17
    cory17 Posts: 1,379 Member
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    @Look_Its_Kriss - how goes it w/the vyvanse? how long taking it & any difference in how you're feeling, what have you noticed?

    This past weekend grocery shopping, my husband wanted a bunch of snacks, among them ice cream. Just because I picked up his, picked up one for me (my excuse was it's sugarfree). Once it's home, that container has never lasted more than a couple days. Had some, then some more. I know those calories add up and are a BIG part of why my weight was creeping up and up last year. Finally faced up and threw it out outside so couldn't change my mind. Only had about a fourth instead of the whole thing - that's the positive.

    Last night made green protein drinks for today at work. Plus!

    I'm trying to be honest with myself and think instead of just eating whatever is at hand, not reacting to MY emotions about negative, controlling people and change my routines and the habit of noshing while reading.
  • Macy9336
    Macy9336 Posts: 694 Member
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    Certain foods can create physical addictions in people. So it's not 100% a behavioural issue. The documentary Super Size Me for example followed an intrepid journalist who only ate McDonalds for a month. He had his health, blood, etc checked out by a Dr before and after. While he expected to gain some weight, there were other things he did not expect. One if which was the cravings and classic withdrawal symptoms of a physical addiction. He investigated further and found that it is actually a common practice for food companies to engineer processed foods to cause addiction responses in the brain....so you buy more and more and more. There is another documentary Hungry For Change that covers this in detail insofar as processed snack foods like potato crisps, cakes, donuts, soda, candy bars etc. http://www.hungryforchange.tv/article/the-secret-engineering-of-junk-food
  • Macy9336
    Macy9336 Posts: 694 Member
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    Also for anyone who wants to read about the brain chemistry and hormones involved in food addictions, this is a great article from Time magazine including an interview with the Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
    http://healthland.time.com/2012/04/05/yes-food-can-be-addictive-says-the-director-of-the-national-institute-on-drug-abuse/.
  • Macy9336
    Macy9336 Posts: 694 Member
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    Look_Its_Kriss wrote: »
    I have a few comments on this..

    First.. as most people.. we do not usually eat the same thing every single day for every meal for a long period of time. None of us are waking up and eating cake for breakfast, lunch and supper. So the likelihood that people are going to experience physical symptoms of "addiction" from food is very unlikely. There have been instances where certain people eat too much of one particular food and develop an allergy to it, the body starts rejecting it, but this is not an addiction either.

    Outside of this one link specifically made for this documentary, I would love to see actual studies done on processed foods proving them to be specifically engineered to be more addictive, because processed foods is a very vast term which goes far well and beyond snack foods and soda..

    People need to stop trying to place blame on something else a lot of the time.. It would be so easy to just blame the companies for making us addicted to snack foods and soda, wouldn't it? Truth is though.. compulsive behavior is often amplified when a particular item of enjoyment is easy to get. Junk food is very easy to get. Its everywhere. And you know whats even harder? being around people who don't share common goals. Always being the fat person in a group, it seemed like skinny people could just eat the snack foods without a care in the world and never gain weight.. If they could do it, why couldn't i? So i would eat just as much as them. But if the food was being specifically engineered to be addictive, shouldn't said skinny friends be eating and buying more and more and also gaining weight? I mean as far as addictive substances go.. the addict usually needs a fix more and more as the abuse continues, more often. It wouldn't make sense that they could be somehow addicted to snack foods and yet somehow still managed to maintain their weight, especially if the concept of the food companies is for us to buy more and more.

    The problem is that when you are around people who don't share a common goal, and they are all out having fun, eating snacks, going to dinner, movies, drinks, etc we want to be apart of it. We are social. We don't want to be that peeling wallpaper in the corner. These foods are always associated with enjoyment. We like sugar, we like palatable high fat treats and snacks.. Its why when we are in times of stress or depression or having a bad day we turn to these foods to comfort and distract us. It's a coping mechanism because we aren't taught how to handle these things in other more effective ways. Oddly personal therapy is often something people avoid or try really hard to hide from others because it's viewed as shameful. It's more socially and mentally accepted by others to eat your feelings then go see someone and talk about them or even be medicated for them.

    Outside influences and coping mechanisms can happen at any stage of life.. some people have eating issues since they were a child, others sometimes don't develop one until their teens.. maybe someone didn't turn to food until a parent passed away when they were an adult.. They are incredibly hard to break, because often times we don't know where to focus that stress or pain, can't give it away to someone else.. maybe they don't have the money for real therapy, what do they do? They eat because food is available.. its cheaper and it distracts from the issue at hand, sugary snacks activate the same place in the brain as cuddling with a puppy. It's happiness, We seek that. But its not addiction. We need to start being able to see that. We need to stop trying to find reasons for why we can't and start working on more reasons why we can.

    Mental health is not a part of the health system that is given a lot of focus or money.
    That needs to change. We need more places with availability so that people who need help, be it with stress and trigger foods, eating disorders, ways to develop new habits and coping strategies not just with food but with every day life have a resource they can go to. The stigma needs to be lifted on getting help. But we can't remove the stigma on getting mental help until we stop trying to blame other things for making us do it.

    It took me a long time with my binge eating disorder to accept the fact that i couldn't fix myself on my own. If i kept just blaming anyone and everything for the reasons why i was binge eating in the first place i never would of gotten help, cause i would still be sitting in my room.. eating large pizzas to myself.. saying i couldn't help it because my mom was a terrible parent. Its my moms fault for how she was with me as a kid. Maybe i could of stumbled upon this link to addictive processed foods and also said "well the companies have made me an addict, so now i really can't help myself"..

    Sometimes we can't fix the issue by ourselves, i know we want to be those kinds of people, climbed the mountain and conquered but it's hard and seeking guidance and tools shouldn't be viewed as taking away from that reward of beating a struggle, I mean look at me, i need medication to stop binge eating.. but i am damn proud of myself now. The same goes for anyone else out there.. if you eat a lot of junk and you want to stop, then find out where you can seek some new tools and knowledge.. Don't let some documentary with its own agenda or media outlet make you think you are powerless, cause you aren't. Its not addiction, don't let them make you look weak by putting those ideas into your head. If your moments of binge eating are consuming your life, there is help out there too. Anorexia, same for them, there is help to get them on the road to recovery.. Food... any food, only has power over you if you let it. Get the tools, guidance and use those effectively to navigate your own life.

    Funny that, you are quite willing to state that a binge eating disorder is real ailment and is your personal reason for getting obese and your struggles and hard work to overcome it. (It is real and good on you..I know mental health issues can cause a serious disability myself). You also speak at length about how a person can get help to combat mental health issues like an ED, which I really liked and thought was inspiring.

    But.....why on earth are you claiming that a documentary about food addiction is just some media with a hidden agenda of letting people blame companies for their poor eating habits? That it is highly unlikely anyone could get addicted to a food? (The studies are out there, and easy to find, you could have done some research before commenting like this). I would never in a million years watch a documentary about binge eating disorder and then be like...oh it's just a snowflake agenda piece of media so people who pig out all the time can have the excuse that it's because of "childhood trauma" instead of taking responsibility for constantly stuffing themselves. That would be utterly dismissive and offensive...yet that is what you seem to be saying about food addiction. I've met several people that suffer from food addiction. Three are addicted to Pepsi...and they drink it nonstop all waking hrs..they drink it so fast, the cans don't have time to cool in the fridge. They can't stop despite multiple health issues...immune systems shutting down, kidney stones, gall bladder removals, swollen joints, diabetes, etc. But there are loads of people like you who brush them off when they say it's a problem, they need help, that they need some kind of detox like alcoholics in rehab get. How would you have felt if everyone you approached for help told you that binging wasn't a real ED? That what you were going through is just some lame excuse? Do you honestly think you could have beaten your ED if the fact of it was never acknowledged and instead of getting the help you needed all you got was ridicule and disbelief? Think about it.
  • Macy9336
    Macy9336 Posts: 694 Member
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    Ok all. You're misunderstanding what food addiction is. It is not an emotional or behavioural based problem. It is an actual physiological addiction to a food or foods. You have no idea about my friends with the Pepsi addiction...it's not a caffeine addiction at all. It is Pepsi. To give an example one of them, Annie, stayed with us for three months. One morning we had no Pepsi in the house. We had coke, we had tea, we had coffee...several caffeine sources but only Pepsi would do. Before even eating breakfast, a mere three minutes after stumbling out of bed, we were driving Annie to the closest corner shop so she could buy a big bottle of Pepsi. We get to the stop light across from the corner shop...alas it was red so we stopped. Annie literally jumped out of the car and ran across a busy intersection because she couldn't wait to get her Pepsi. We catch up and she is in line to pay but with the bottle already open and she's taking gulps of the stuff like a person who's just crawled out of the Sahara desert. I had never seen anything like it in my life! You don't know just what a food addict goes through until you see it firsthand.

    Look most people can drink alcohol without becoming an alcoholic...but alcoholism is real. Many recreational drug users are not addicts, but junkies exist. It is the same with food...most people can eat these engineered foods without getting addicted but some cannot. They've tried talking therapy and behavioural methods on food addicts with no success. What has worked is the same addict therapy used for alcoholics and drug users. There are numerous scientific studies showing food addiction is a real physiological disease affecting the brain as strongly as cocaine or heroin. These same studies looked at which foods were addictive and they were ALL the food which companies or whistleblowers have admitted deliberately engineer the food to engender physical cravings and set off the pleasure receptors in our minds. It's even to the point that the crunch of a crisp is designed to be at 0.4 lbs if pressure because that creates most pleasure. They study what colours we are most attracted to in food. You have no idea the lengths these companies go to to test and engineer these foods. They are acting no different from Big Tobacco. Just look at Finland and how they handled their food companies that were adding salt to food so they could up their market share of customers because the salt made the food taste better...causing binge eating and addiction. Finland held the companies accountable, salt levels went down and so did the instances of salt related health problems.

    Since one of you has rebuked me for not posting evidence, I feel compelled to start posting links. I DO hope you will read the material.
    http://foodaddictioninstitute.org/scientific-research/physical-craving-and-food-addiction-a-scientific-review/. This covers basic reasearch over the past 25yrs. It references dozens of scientific studies.
  • Macy9336
    Macy9336 Posts: 694 Member
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    More evidence. The importance of recognising food addiction as real is for treatment purposes. See a food addict can't just do CICO, they have to avoid the foods they are addicted to completely. They need to be separated from whatever they are addicted to until the cravings and withdrawal stops..then they can't eat it without kicking off the addiction again. So while the "don't deny yourself" approach to dieting will work for some people, it is kryptonite to a food addict who absolutely must deny themselves that food if they are to succeed. There are multiple clinics and support groups for food addicts.

    Neurobiology of Food Addiction, 2010 study
    http://journals.lww.com/co-clinicalnutrition/Abstract/2010/07000/Neurobiology_of_food_addiction.3.aspx

    Further Developments in the Neurobiology of Food Addiction 2012
    http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0899900711004096

    Another good summary of the genetic, brain and biochemical evidence for food addiction
    http://foodaddiction.com/resources/science-of-food-addiction/

    On the role of Big Food...both on how they engineer food to be addictive and how they exploit behavioural and emotional causes of over eating:

    Salt, Sugar, Fat: How the Food a Giants Hooked Us by Mike Moss is a good book. He went through tons on internal memos in the food industry...even found letter from Big Tobacco giving advice to them! Here is a quick article on it from NPR
    http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2013/02/26/172969363/how-the-food-industry-manipulates-taste-buds-with-salt-sugar-fat

    Bruce Bradley another whistle blower from big food
    http://brucebradley.com/confessions-of-a-former-big-food-executive/

    Difference if Big Food is Gov regulated to not use too much salt, sugar or fat....

    Finland, what happened when the government stepped in to regulate salt content in foods. http://www.worldactiononsalt.com/worldaction/europe/53774.html

    UK also started to regulate salt content in foods, but important to note US food industry is fighting against regulation.
    http://www.foodpolitics.com/tag/food-industry-regulation/

    Quick article on power of the Food Industry lobbying power in US
    http://www.commondreams.org/views/2013/02/11/us-food-industry-battles-against-regulation

    Another article with a little more info from Mike Moss book as well as Bruce Bradley again. http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/food-cravings-engineered-by-industry-1.1395225

    Article that describes the synthetic chemicals added to a few foods specifically to make them more addictive...like yoga mat material to McDonalds chicken nuggets. Stuff you would never encounter in nature or by homecooking. This is waaaay beyond having a special recipe...where it's just combinations of food, spices, cooking...
    http://www.alternet.org/5-unhealthy-foods-engineered-be-addictive
  • Macy9336
    Macy9336 Posts: 694 Member
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    Now I'm not saying that Big Food is 100% to blame but it is clear they bear some responsibility for the fact that the deck is stacked against those who want to eat healthy. Junk food, fast food..it is widely available, heavily marketed...even to children, and very cheap to buy. They pay grocery stores to place the less healthy stuff at eye level or on displays so you have to hunt/bend over/fish around to find the healthy options. Why do you think every checkout in the US has a fully stocked rack of candy bars? Because they know that while waiting to pay, the longer you look at those triggering packages, the more likely you are to throw a snickers bar or three onto the conveyor belt with your groceries. Nowadays in the US it is almost impossible to find yogurt that does not have added sugar...food that was once healthy has been deliberately made unhealthy because the companies wanted to sell more product. It doesn't have to be this way...but sadly the only way to reign in the profit driven ethos is via government regulation because it creates an even playing field. Yet these same companies are fighting government regulation! If they wanted to help consumers eat more healthy...they wouldn't be doing the things they do.
  • GottaBurnEmAll
    GottaBurnEmAll Posts: 7,722 Member
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    You have missed the whole point of the post... none of this matters.

    Also, here's the catch from the first link you posted:

    What causes this so called addiction (which is still up in the air in spite of what you think) -- I believe this was covered at some point earlier in this thread when referencing eating addiction:
    Science has long established that the body creates opioids by itself. These endogenous opioids are of the same chemical makeup as the addictive elements of narcotic substances like heroin and morphine. A closer look at the process by which these endogenous opioids are produced shows that a major cause of this phenomenon is a pattern of ingesting sugar and/or fat, then restricting, then ingesting it again. In short, binge – restriction – binge behavior can create a biochemically addictive process with certain foods that engages the dopamine 2 receptors in the brain in the same way that alcohol and addictive drugs do. The existence of this process has been shown in both animal and human research on endogenous opioids. It has been confirmed with experiments using an opiate blocker, e.g. naloxone.

    You are looking at the effect with your Pepsi friend diagnosing addiction, and missing all the behavior that led to what happened and crying physiological addiction.

    The problem here is that binge/restrict is what led to the problem in the first place.

    However, we could do this all day, and in the end none of it matters. What matters is what people are going to DO.

    Frankly, I find your tale about your friend strains the boundary of credulity. Adults just don't act in that manner, and I used to be involved with an alcoholic who stole from me to buy booze.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    edited March 2017
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    Macy9336 wrote: »
    Ok all. You're misunderstanding what food addiction is. It is not an emotional or behavioural based problem. It is an actual physiological addiction to a food or foods.

    I'd read the first post and the research it is based on.

    What you are claiming does not make sense and is not supported by credible scientists. You can't be "addicted" physically to one food and not others that are to your body just about exactly the same (i.e., same macros). Your body NEEDS food, yes, and will protest if you cut carbs too dramatically (for a short period of time, anyway, and especially if you don't deal with the fact it dumps water and electrolytes), but again that's not withdrawal. That's the absence of something your body relies on in normal preferred processes.

    You simply can't be physically "addicted" (i.e., dependent on) Pepsi and not other foods that are the equivalent -- sugar. It makes no sense. Caffeine creates a dependence, yes.

    What I've read from those more friendly to the notion of addictiveness in food is that it's about hyperpalatable foods (which always makes me wonder if the palates of those in question just aren't well-developed, since most homemade foods that have been around for quite a lot time are more palatable than the so called junk food that is referred to, usually), but even so if you read what's said it's not really treated like an addiction even if they think the word can be useful. (They also seem to suffer from this idea that there needs to be an explanation for people overeating, since they wouldn't otherwise, which just always seems truly bizarre to me -- maybe more former fat people need to be involved.) Yes, there are physical processes that explain why we enjoy eating and especially enjoy foods high in salt, sugar, or fat (or a combination most of all), but confusing that with "physical dependence" is a mistake. Also, if you are imagining this is something only addicted people experience, well, that should be self-evidently wrong if you think about it at all.

    Could someone have an eating addiction with Pepsi as a trigger food? Could someone have a strong bad habit with Pepsi and miss it when changing that habit? Of course, but that's not sufficient for it to be considered an addiction normally and, especially, it's not a physical addiction. I've seen SuperSizeMe (and the response doc by the low carb guy too) and they aren't claiming it creates a physical dependence (and wouldn't be qualified to do so). That you tend to crave what you've been eating, especially if it's something hyperpalatable (combination of salt, fat, carbs) is normal, but doesn't mean addiction.

    Bigger point that someone else raised, and what I think it would be useful to move to: so what? The OP's post and links answered that question for me -- it's important not to engage in habits with food, if you can avoid it, that tend to lead to addictive responses, like demonization and shaming when you eat something and the idea that if you don't cut it all out you are a bad person or the like. (It's also helpful on the cycle in general.)

    I don't find it useful to confuse addiction and my particular struggles with food, which are wrapped around emotional eating, plus a bit of hedonism. I do find it useful to use some of the same techniques I found helpful with quitting drinking, however. And if someone else finds the term addiction (often understanding that if so it can move from food to food and is about the behavior), I don't care, whatever works. The main question is what do you then do about it?
  • GottaBurnEmAll
    GottaBurnEmAll Posts: 7,722 Member
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    What you are claiming does not make sense and is not supported by credible scientists. You can't be "addicted" physically to one food and not others that are to your body just about exactly the same (i.e., same macros). Your body NEEDS food, yes, and will protest if you cut carbs too dramatically (for a short period of time, anyway, and especially if you don't deal with the fact it dumps water and electrolytes), but again that's not withdrawal. That's the absence of something your body relies on in normal preferred processes.

    You simply can't be physically "addicted" (i.e., dependent on) Pepsi and not other foods that are the equivalent -- sugar. It makes no sense. Caffeine creates a dependence, yes.

    I was just coming back, now that I'm more awake, to address this very point.

    I was reminded how alcoholics will drink things like rubbing alcohol and mouthwash.

    The argument that someone can be addicted to one particular food is, on the face of it, quite silly, particularly in the case of something like soda.

    I get that drug addictions don't necessarily cross (a meth addict won't go do coke I don't think -- I don't know much about this, I haven't known anyone addicted to drugs), but with food? I'm pretty sure any soda would do if soda were physically addictive.

    The incident described, were it to have actually happened, reminded me of stories of pregnant women experiencing cravings in the middle of the night. I remember being possessed by the overwhelming need to consume Welch's concentrate over crushed ice and nothing else would do when I was pregnant with my daughter.

    Craving =/= addiction
  • GottaBurnEmAll
    GottaBurnEmAll Posts: 7,722 Member
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    In a follow up to @Look_Its_Kriss, the question would be, if one were addicted to a specific food, what in that food makes it addictive? To answer your more specific question, if food is an addictive substance, it would fall under the category of not necessarily addictive for everyone.

    However, let's look at the question of specific foods being physically addictive:

    The question that follows from that is, if that ingredient makes that food addictive, doesn't it then follow that every food with that ingredient is then also addictive?

    This is where the argument for physical addiction to specific foods falls apart, because people seem to be quite specific when they claim that they're addicted.

    What this train of thought does support, though, is the idea behind craving (which is not to be confused with addiction, because they're not the same), compulsion (which is behavioral) and habit (which is also behavioral).

    The argument for addiction with food that I do find compelling is the case made for there being, in some extreme cases, an addiction to eating.

    I draw the parallel between my own struggles with weight vs. the people featured on My 600 Pound Life. I'm not an eating addict, but I have my share of problems.

    Similarly, I had my share of problems with alcohol, but learned after being involved with a real alcoholic that my relationship with alcohol was merely problematic. I wasn't an addict. Addicts have what I refer to as "an addict brain". They are a person lost in their addiction, and their addiction sort of takes over their life and way of relating to everything. I never did that with booze. I haven't done that with food.
  • GottaBurnEmAll
    GottaBurnEmAll Posts: 7,722 Member
    edited March 2017
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    Some further random thoughts on craving =/= addiction.

    IIRC, and I do hope someone pops in here who can shed some more light, in cases where there is substance dependence involved (physical addiction), there's a further neurological pathway involved than what everyone crows about with dopamine when the usual discussions about sugar addiction take place around here.

    It seems to me that, particularly in the case of single foods or of certain foods, that the concept revolves around hedonic reward. One wants or is compelled to seek out that particular taste, or texture for the pleasure involved in consuming it.

    While the argument could be made that all addictions involve pleasure reward (or at least the avoidance of pain), substance addictions, as I said, involve activation of additional pathways, if I'm recalling what I've read correctly. I don't believe this is the case for food, just as it's not the case for any other pleasurable activity that activates dopamine.

    This would explain why only Pepsi would do. The other poster's friend wanted the experience feedback she could only get from Pepsi. Were she truly addicted to something in the Pepsi, Coke would have done it for her. I think Pepsi and Coke likely have similar formulas, and just vary in ingredient amounts, tbh.

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