Food addiction is a compulsive behavior of binge eating, despite awareness of its dire consequences. Food addition adversely affects healthy living. A food addict is an individual who uses food compulsion to satisfy certain physical and emotional needs, with no regard for the negative consequences of binge eating. Compulsive eating is a disease of food addiction.
People often attribute food addiction or compulsive eating to weak willpower, bad eating habits, or behavioral problems. But food addiction is a serious mental and physiological disorder. In addition, it is chronic and progressive in that food addiction never really goes away, and the symptoms always get worse over time.
To fully understand food addiction disorder, it is best to go into the mind of a food addict.
A food addict begins with an obsession with food, using food for weight control or to overcome emotional distress. The mind becomes preoccupied with thoughts of food, such as what food to eat, what food to buy, and how to prepare food. These obsessive thoughts in the mind of a food addict begin to create food anticipation to the extent that it becomes out of control. Once the food addict crosses from desire into addiction, compulsion takes over. Once started, the compulsion to eat is never fully satisfied, no matter how much food is consumed.
On the wake of episodes of binge eating, feelings of guilt often begin to sink in after the food addict’s repeated wrestling with wanting to eat on the one hand and desiring to stay slim on the other hand. As the dilemma continues and the fear of obesity intensifies, the food addict may turn to aggressive and drastic measures, such as self-induced vomiting (the characteristic binge-purge syndrome), different weight-loss programs, fad diets, diet pills, diuretic drugs, and even dangerous surgeries.
As with any addiction, tolerance begins to take effect on the food addict: tolerance to purging, drugs, and pills. Worse, the food addict develops tolerance to increased food intake. By then, compulsive eating has become a disorder in that food addict.
Denial to having an eating disorder is common among food addicts, as with an addiction, such as alcohol. Food addiction is a disorder that tells an individual that there is nothing wrong with that individual. Therefore, breaking that denial is the first, as well as an important, step towards recovery.
When a food addict stops binge eating, symptoms of withdrawal, such as chills, dizziness, headaches, and nausea, begin to emerge. These uncomfortable withdrawal symptoms may be relieved by binge eating, but the relief is short-lived, and the symptoms will recur after a brief interval. Food addiction is a vicious cycle of eating and despair. It is important to prevent any relapse.
A food addict requires professional and medical help, not just willpower.
Food addiction may be initially triggered by emotions and impaired metabolism. Therefore, emotional health and eating right are important to healthy living. Dieting may be another culprit in developing food addiction. Stop Dieting and Start Living shows you the way to lose weight without dieting.
Stephen Lau
Copyright© by Stephen Lau
