Episode 28: Are Some Foods Addictive?
Hello!
One topic that has been frequently discussed for a long time has been the myth of food addiction. As a note, addiction is a large subject on its own and the current studies are somewhat nebulous on how it could affect our relationship with food.
Despite this, Jessica discusses the question of how to practice eating intuitively if one feels like they have a food addiction. Jessica references several literature sources on what is addiction (see the transcript), and hypotheses on food addiction’s etiology. Take with a grain of salt that this episode scratches the surface on the topic of addiction but is tailored from a food lens.
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Transcript
This weeks’ question:
One thing we hear about is that processed foods are highly addictive and cause our body to crave them/causing over eating/etc. So how can we successfully intuitive eat if this happens.
Food addiction is a somewhat highly debated topic. Well it comes up regularly in my sphere for sure. I don’t think there is a clear answer here. And like our relationship with food, the concept of “addiction” is a very complex system.
Wilson back in 2000, said that “Eating disorders show some similar features to substance abuse and dependence, but this does not justify viewing them as an addiction. Neither tolerance nor withdrawal reactions to food have been demonstrated. Evidence for “carbohydrate craving” is lacking, and other ostensibly common features (e.g., loss of control over eating, preoccupation with food) have biobehavioral explanations that do not invoke addiction. While not an addiction, eating disorders have been reliably linked to substance abuse and dependence in clinical and community samples. However, the association is not a specific one, and the mechanisms that explain it are unknown. Independent familial transmission of eating and substance use disorders indicates that they do not derive from a single, shared etiological mechanism.”
First off, let me put in a preface here, the area of work in addictions, is not my specific area of expertise. So this is framed from my lens of working with people that struggle with food. This is its own area of work and there is a MASS amount of research in the area of addictions that I’m not even scraping the surface of.
However, what I do what to first explain while there are addictive substances, only a relatively small percentage of people that do interact with something like alcohol, prescription or non-prescribed drugs, tobacco will ever get addicted.
It speaks to what researcher Shulte describes as “Multiple factors have been implicated in increased addiction risk, such as a family history of addiction [53], motivations to engage in the behavior to cope with negative emotions [54], impulsivity [55], and genetic alleles associated with reward dysfunction [56]. Interestingly, all of the individual differences have also been implicated in problematic eating behaviors [57–60]. Other components of addictive disorders, such as individual differences in sensitization risk and expectancies about outcomes of use, have arguably received less attention in the context of eating problems. If these factors are similarly implicated in compulsive eating behaviors, this could provide further support than an addiction-like process is involved”.
However, neurotransmitters implicated in drug-seeking behaviours that have also been found to influence food intake.
Okay but let’s talk about my people!
Many clients tell me that they are addicted to food or sugar (in particular). And want help with that. That they feel out of control when they eat. They say that they don’t even want to eat those foods, or they don’t feel hungry, but will feel compelled to eat. Or that they eat beyond the point of fullness, even though they know they should stop they feel out of control.
I have found that like food addiction as it’s described to me in this way, is about two main contributing factors: 1) restriction or perceived restriction 2) emotional drivers.
I have heard from clients that have participated in Overeaters Anonymous, that uses an abstinence model like alcoholics anonymous, that they have been told there that sugar spikes “dopamine” – in which things like hugs also increase levels of dopamine. And while some processed foods make the absorption of sugar faster than other foods.
I still find this argument difficult as sugar (as a derivative of foods that we eat – as in, we digest an apple into small components that we use in our bodies…. That is glucose, which is a sugar. So sugar is a major building block for fuel in every single cell of our body. To say that sugar is addictive, makes it sound like gasping for air makes one an oxygen addict.
Often the idea of using food addiction as a categorization is suggesting that to remove the problematic foods, and then the issue with food addiction will go away. And that has not been seen to be the case. And generally the word addiction/addict comes as a “character flaw” that brings shame, that then helps to maintain this negative relationship with food.
And that is the reason why I, in particular do not like using the “food addiction” in my work. In that often my clients are using food to manage how they feel, for very clear reasons, and that food is addictive, has never been one that I have seen with my clients. The relationship definitely feels that way, but it’s not the food item that is.
So back to the question – how do we intuitively eat if food is addictive? I think the underlying assumption is that your hunger-fullness cues, and food interests are important to listen to. That you can still like foods, and want to eat them
Schulte, E.M., Joyner, M.A., Potenza, M.N. et al. Current Considerations Regarding Food Addiction. Curr Psychiatry Rep 17, 19 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11920-015-0563-3
Wilson, G. T. (2000). Eating disorders and addiction. Drugs & Society, 15(1-2), 87-101.