2
while, our field of doctors, counselors, and therapists can’t agree on
how to help. Are the issues biological or psychological? Is the root
of the problem overeating and behavior or hardwiring in the brain
and addiction? How do we even sort through treatment when food,
something essential to life, is as needed and natural as breathing
or sleeping? Can we really expect people to steer away from food
just like we do with drugs, alcohol, nicotine, and other addictive
substances? We need food for survival.
Dying for a Definition
Welcome to an arena where there are no easy answers and there’s
no united front on courses of treatment. We’re finally seeing a body
of science that our field can talk about with assurance—that food
addiction even exists. “The data is so overwhelming the field has
to accept it,” says Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute
on Drug Abuse. Processed foods and sugary drinks can hijack
the brain in ways that resemble addictions to cocaine, nico-
tine, and other drugs.
Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and
Obesity is one of the foundations leading the way
to define the problem… but definitions are still a
long way in coming. Though Yale has gathered a
consortium of scientists since 2007, and there’s
agreement that some people’s brains are
hard-wired for addiction to sugary and fatty
foods just like alcoholics and drug addicts
are hardwired to a drink or drug, no simple
definition of “food addiction” exists.
The closest thing to one is this: Gen-
erally scientists describe food addiction
much the same as other substance
dependence. People compulsively eat
too much despite consequences to
their health, even dire consequences.
They are preoccupied with food, its
preparation, and meals. Although they
try, they fail to cut back on food intake
and then feel guilty about eating and
overeating to the point of it affect-
ing their jobs, relationships, goals and
dreams… as well as their physical, finan-
cial, spiritual, and emotional well-being.
Treatment’s Tricky
Complicating everything is how more
manufacturers are creating, testing, and
selling foods designed to make people want
more by taste, texture, and process. In his best-
selling book, In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan
nails it, saying, “Today foods are processed in ways
specifically designed to sell us more food by pushing
our evolutionary buttons—our inborn preferences for
sweetness and fat and salt.”
So are we being made to crave or fed a fix for our ad-
diction? That question is so loaded for many clients, as well
as those in our field. People rarely use the word addiction when
talking with friends about the foods they love and can’t quit eating,
yet their behavior may be as compulsive, instinctive, and undeni-
able as that of a heroin addict for the drug. The matter is also very
laughable in our culture. How many skits on Saturday Night Live
or movies have you seen where someone downs their troubles in
pints of ice cream and piles of candy bars? How many overweight
actors are shown going crazy in a binge scene just for a laugh? How
often do the people around you gorge on cookie dough and pizza
on Sunday night, and then start dieting again on Monday morn-
ing? How many posters, bumper stickers, T-shirts, and social media
memes do you see emblazoned, “When the going gets tough, the
tough get chocolate?” This makes it hard to agree on whether
the issue at hand regards a craving or an addiction, and
that makes a course of treatment tricky.
With a craving, a diet and food plan
can be the answer… and a nutri-
tionist called upon for help.
However, with addiction,
a diet isn’t going to
do a thing for
someone
with a
life-
style of
eating out-of-
control. One slice
or taste of the sugary
and fatty foods is going to trig-
ger more binges, compulsion, obses-
sion, and a cycle of overeating and shame.
The susceptibility to certain foods, second helpings,
BIGGER
ISN’T
BETTER
BELLY UP:
One in every three people
you know is obese. Obesity in the U.S.
has grown 30% in the last decade, up to
34% of U.S. adults.
EAT UP:
Food and beverage manufac-
turing is now a $1 trillion industry in
the U.S., with new products turned out
every year.
LIVE IT UP:
Obesity costs U.S. health-
care $344 billion a year, and the hazards
of obesity (heart disease, stroke, type
2 diabetes and certain types of cancer)
now rival that of smoking in the U.S.
[SOURCES: “Adult Obesity Facts” from The Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention. “Fatty Foods Addictive as Cocaine in
Growing Body of Science” by Robert Langreth and Duane E.
Stanford, Bloomberg Businessweek (November 11, 2011).]
