Are You A Food Addict?

While many of us joke about being “addicted” to this or that, there can be serious concerns when someone truly has an addiction to food. What is difficult about food addiction is that unlike most other addictions, food is something that we need. Our bodies have been designed to be attracted to certain qualities of food derived from sugar, salt, and fat, and these are all things that we need to survive.

The Signs of Addiction

So how do you know if you are truly addicted? First, we must establish what a food addiction looks like. The first sign of food addiction is when you consistently overeat to the point of being overly full and uncomfortable. Eating until full is one thing, but if you consistently eat in a fashion that actually takes the pleasure out of eating, then this is not a good sign. The second sign is the feeling of being out of control while eating. Much like someone who is addicted to alcohol and cannot have just one drink, someone who is addicted to food cannot have just one serving of their favorite foods. And this does not mean that two or three will suffice, either. One taste and an addict is usually sent into a single-minded mission to consume as much as they can. For drinkers, they would only stop once they passed out. For eaters, they may only stop once they physically can no longer swallow.

There are also less obvious signs that you have an eating addiction. Because addiction is generally characterized by withdrawals—feelings of discomfort, distress, or cravings—your addiction may not be about overeating as much as eating to fill a void. This could mean consistently eating because of feeling lonely, bored, sad, discouraged, etc. It could also mean that you do not eat enough or are resistant to eating changes even when dealing with a nutrition related disease. To be clear, if you are bored one day and you go eat a bag of chips, you are not a food addict. But if every day you constantly snack because you are bored with your job or what you are doing, or you snack all day because you are stressed, or you stay constantly hungry throughout the day because it gives you a sense of control, then you are addicted to food as a source of comfort.

Building a Dependency

A common occurrence for food addicts is that as they become more set in their addiction, they become more and more dependent on their favorite foods to produce the same comforting effect. This is where addiction becomes dangerous, because while having a bowl of ice cream each night may not be the worst thing in the world, if you continue to need more ice cream more times through the day, then you are on the road to self-destruction.

The official symptoms of substance dependency are as follows:

1) Using more over time (aka building tolerance)

2) Experiencing withdrawals

3) Using more than intended

4) Being unsuccessful in attempts to limit consumption

5) Spending time pursuing, using, or recovering from use (think about the effort put into acquiring favorite foods, or time spent recovering from the feelings of fullness, bloating, or nausea that may arise from overeating)

6) Missing important activities because of use

7) Partake despite knowledge of consequences

If you consistently experience at least three of the previous statements when it comes to your eating, you should seriously consider the possibility that you have an unhealthy dependency on food.

Why Does this Happen?

Why would something so important to our survival have the potential to cause so much harm as well? The problem is that in today’s world, we are no longer just dealing with “natural” foods. We have access to processed foods that have been engineered to CAUSE addiction. In nature, you do not find fat, sugar, and salt in the same place…ever.  And there is a reason for this—while you may love the sweet taste of fruit (which has actually be engineered to be sweeter these days) your body and taste buds naturally become acclimated and disinterested if you just keep eating apples (sugar). Add in some peanut butter, though (salt & fat), and you can eat a significant amount more. Now it is only when you feel full that encourages you to stop eating, rather than a loss of palatability.

This shift in food production and consumption has led to a dramatic increase in the amount of food we can and do consume and sets the stage for addictive tendencies. Now we have access to a huge variety of foods that are very energy dense, tend to not have many nutrients (processed food is usually stripped of its vitamins and minerals), and our culture has shifted to where large portions and overeating is the norm. Being overweight is now actually the norm, as well. With all of this working against us, it is no wonder that food may be the most common addiction around.

Fighting Addiction

If you feel that you might have an addiction to food, please know that there are many others like you who are dealing with the same conflicts. While this is not something that you can “treat” necessarily, it is something that you can work to address. To best handle one’s addiction, the following factors must be dealt with:

1) Food availability and environment

If you have an issue with eating, then you MUST avoid the people, places, and things that trigger you to rely on food. You must keep your environment clean of the foods that send you over the edge and change your social setting so that you are not in a position to easily indulge your cravings.

2) Facing your emotions

It is important to recognize negative emotions as a natural part of life and that neither food, nor drugs, nor alcohol will resolve them. Painful emotions stay with us until we face them straight on and work through what we are feeling, not around it. Life becomes so much more challenging when we spend our time and energy avoiding our own feelings, and it can be detrimental to our health when we use substances to comfort ourselves and avoid our feelings.

3) Going through withdrawals

As with any addiction, when you first try to fight it, there will be hard times. Just know that if you can last 2-4 weeks avoiding your trigger foods, the cravings and discomfort you feel WILL subside.

On this point, however, it should be stated that “dieting” and diet pills are not the way to get through this struggle. Dieting is an act of reason and willpower (both things that cannot win out over time), not a lifestyle change. When you diet, it is usually associated with eating very little and over-exercising, followed by binge eating and weight gain. Our goal is not to diet or use drugs that help suppress appetite, because these things do not deal with the underlying root of the problem. As with any addiction, you must not only move away from the addictive substance, you must find new meaning and activity to replace what that substance provided for you.

4) Finding Meaning        

This is the most important point in all of this. While changing your environment will help support your fight against your addiction, it is not until you find new meaning in your life that you can truly be free. What drugs, alcohol, and food provide for the addict must be found in other, more supportive activities. Often times this starts by establishing what you want out of life. Unless you have a reason to change your current situation, then all will remain. If, however, you decide that there is something more important in your life than your addictive substance, AND you take the steps needed to change your environment, then you will be better equipped to make the changes necessary to kick your addiction.

Last Words

I want it to be clear that overcoming an addiction is no easy task, and if you do find that you have an addiction to food, making the changes necessary to alter your situation will take time and effort. We do not just wake up one morning and find out that we are overweight, unhealthy, full of negative emotions, and have a serious addiction. It took years of building unhealthy habits and avoiding our own internal struggles that lead us down this road. So, if you have had trouble fighting a food addiction in the past, please know that conquering it will take time, effort, and the support of your friends and family. I want you to know that there is hope and there is a way out. It may not be the easy road, but if you can keep the path to recovery in view long enough, you will be able to come out the other side a whole new person.