[instagram-feed user="askdrho"]

We Are Not To Blame For Our Food Addiction

Disclaimer: Elise Ho, aka “Dr. Ho” is a Holistic Health & Life Coach. Dr. Ho is NOT a medical doctor, licensed therapist, lawyer, or a bevy of other things. Products or services that Dr. Ho believes in are the only ones that she recommends. Dr. Ho may receive compensation, product, or an affiliate commission on anything you see on this site. This is a personal Website solely reflecting Dr. Ho’s personal opinions. Statements on this site do not represent the views or policies of any organization with which I may be affiliated.

Share on facebook
Facebook
Share on twitter
Twitter
Share on pinterest
Pinterest

Do you want to kick food addiction?

Please welcome my mentor, Mark Hyman, as he shares information on how our society has fed our food addiction.

BOTH OUR GOVERNMENT AND FOOD INDUSTRY encourage more “personal responsibility” when it comes to battling the obesity epidemic. They say people should exercise more self-control and make better choices. Additionally, people should avoid over-eating and reduce their intake of sugar-sweetened drinks and processed food.

We are lead to believe there is no good food or bad food—that it’s all a matter of balance. This sounds good in theory but there are issues with this theory.

New discoveries in science prove that industrial, processed, sugar, fat, and salt-laden food is biologically addictive.

Imagine a foot high pile of broccoli, or a giant bowl of apple slices. Do you know anyone who would binge on broccoli or apples? On the other hand, imagine a mountain of potato chips, a whole bag of cookies, or a pint of ice cream.

Those are easy to imagine vanishing in an unconscious, reptilian brain eating frenzy. Broccoli is not addictive, but cookies, chips, or soda absolutely can become addictive drugs.

The “just say no” approach to drug addiction hasn’t fared very well. It won’t work for our industrial food addiction either. Tell a cocaine or heroin addict or an alcoholic to “just say no” after that first snort, shot, or drink. It’s not that simple. There are specific biological mechanisms that drive addictive behavior.

Nobody chooses to be a drug addict or an alcoholic. Nobody chooses to be heavy either.

The behaviors arise out of primitive neurochemical reward centers in the brain that override normal willpower. Furthermore, these overwhelm our ordinary biological signals that control hunger.

Consider:

  • Cigarette smokers who continue to smoke even though they know smoking will give them cancer and heart disease.
  • Less than 20 percent of alcoholics successfully quit drinking.
  • Most addicts continue to use cocaine and heroin despite their lives being destroyed.
  • Quitting caffeine can lead to irritability and headaches.

This is because these substances are all biologically addictive.

Why is it so hard for obese people to lose weight despite the social stigma and health consequences such as high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, and even cancer ?

It is not because they WANT to be overweight. It is because certain types of food are addictive.

Food made with sugar, fat, and salt can be addictive. We are biologically wired to crave these foods and eat as much of them as possible.

We all know about cravings, but what does the science tell us about food and addiction and what are the legal and policy implications if certain food are, in fact, addictive?

The Science and Nature of Food Addiction

Let’s examine the research and the similarities between high-sugar, fatty and salty processed junk food and cocaine, heroin, and nicotine. We’ll start by reviewing the diagnostic criteria for substance dependence or addiction found in the bible of psychiatric diagnosis—the DSM-IV and look at how that relates to food addiction.

  • Substance is taken in a larger amount and for a longer period than needed. A classic symptom in people who habitually overeat.
  • Persistent desire or repeated unsuccessful attempts to quit. The repeated diet attempts so many overweight people go through.
  • Much time is spent to obtain, use, or recover. Those repeated attempts to lose weight take time.
  • Important social, occupational, or recreational activities given up or reduced. Often seen in many patients who are overweight or obese.
  • Use continues despite knowledge of adverse consequences. Without help few are capable of making the dietary changes that would lead to this outcome.
  • Tolerance (marked increase in amount, marked decrease in effect). In other words you have to keep eating more and more just to feel “normal”. 
  • Characteristic withdrawal symptoms; substance taken to relieve withdrawal. Many people undergo a “healing crisis” that has many of the same symptoms as withdrawal when removing certain foods from their diet.

Few of us are free from this addictive pattern. If you examine your own behavior and relationship to sugar, in particular, you will likely find that your behavior around sugar and the biological effects of over-consumption of sugar match up perfectly. Many of the criteria above are likely to apply to you.

Researchers from Yale’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity validated a “food addiction” scale. Listed below are a few of the points on the scale that are used to determine if you have a food addiction.

Does any of this sound familiar? If it does you may be an “industrial food addict.”

  1. I find that when I start eating certain foods, I end up eating much more than I had planned.
  2. Not eating certain types of food, or cutting down on certain types of food, is something I worry about.
  3. I spend a lot of time feeling sluggish or lethargic from overeating.
  4. There have been times when I consumed certain foods so often or in such large quantities that I spent time dealing with negative feelings from overeating. This was instead of working, spending time with my family or friends, or engaging in other activities.
  5. I kept consuming the same types of food or the same amount of food even though I was having emotional and/or physical problems.
  6. Over time, I have found that I need to eat more and more to get the feeling I want. These feelings may have included reduced negative emotions or increased pleasure.
  7. I have had withdrawal symptoms when I cut down or stopped eating certain foods that was not related to cutting down on caffeinated beverages. 
  8. My behavior with respect to food and eating causes significant distress.
  9. I experience significant problems in my ability to function effectively because of food and eating.

Here are some of the scientific findings confirming that food can, indeed, be addictive:

  1. Sugar stimulates the brain’s reward centers through the neurotransmitter dopamine. This is exactly like other addictive drugs.
  2. Brain imaging (PET scans) shows that high-sugar and high-fat foods work just like heroin, opium, or morphine in the brain.
  3. Brain imaging (PET scans) shows that obese people and drug addicts have lower numbers of dopamine receptors. This makes them more likely to crave things that boost dopamine.
  4. Foods high in fat and sweets stimulate the release of the body’s own opioids.
  5. Drugs that we use to block the brain’s receptors for heroin and morphine also reduce the preference for sweet, high-fat foods.
  6. People develop a tolerance to sugar and need more and more of the substance to satisfy themselves. This is just like they do for drugs of abuse like alcohol or heroin.
  7. Obese individuals continue to eat large amounts of unhealthy foods despite negative consequences, just like addicts.
  8. Animals and humans experience “withdrawal” when suddenly cut off from sugar, just like addicts detoxifying from drugs.
  9. Just like drugs, after an initial period of “enjoyment” of the food the user no longer consumes them to get high, but to feel normal.

In his book, The End of Overeating, David Kessler, MD, the former head of the Food and Drug Administration, describes the science of how food is made into drugs. This is done by the creation of hyper-palatable foods that lead to neuro-chemical addiction.

In a Harvard Study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, overweight adolescents consumed an extra 500 calories a day when allowed to eat junk food as compared to days when they were not permitted to eat junk food.

They ate more because the food triggered cravings and addiction. Like an alcoholic after the first drink, once these kids started eating processed food full of the sugar, fat, and salt, they could not stop. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If high-sugar, high-fat, calorie-rich, nutrient-poor, processed, fast, junk food is indeed, addictive, what does that mean? How should that influence our approach to obesity? What implications does it have for government policies and regulation? Are there legal implications? If we are allowing and even promoting addictive substances in our children’s diets, how should we handle that?

I can assure you, Big Food isn’t going to make any changes voluntarily. They would rather ignore this science. They have three mantras about food.

  1. It’s all about choice. Choosing what you eat is about personal responsibility. Government regulation controlling how you market food or what foods you can eat leads to a nanny state, food “fascists”, and interference with our civil liberties.
  2. There are no good foods and bad foods. It’s all about amount. So no specific foods can be blamed for the obesity epidemic.
  3. Focus on education about exercise not diet. As long as you burn off those calories, it shouldn’t matter what you eat.

Unfortunately, this is little more than propaganda from an industry interested in profit, not in nourishing the nation.

Do We Really Have a Choice About What We Eat?

The biggest sham in food industry strategy and government food policy is advocating and emphasizing individual choice and personal responsibility to solve our obesity and chronic disease epidemic. We are told if people just wouldn’t eat so much, exercised more, and took care of themselves, we would be fine.

We don’t want the government telling us what to do. Free choice is what we want. But are your choices free, or is Big Food driving behavior through insidious marketing techniques?

We live in a toxic food environment, a nutritional wasteland. School lunchrooms and vending machines overflow with junk food and “sports drinks”. Most of us don’t even know what we’re eating. Fifty percent of meals are eaten outside the home and most home cooked meals are simply microwavable industrial food.

Environmental factors (like advertising, lack of menu labeling, and others) and the addictive properties of “industrial food” when added together override our normal biological or psychological control mechanisms.

Here are some ways we can change our food environment:

  • Build the real cost of industrial food into the price. Include its impact on health care costs and lost productivity
  • Subsidize the production of fruits and vegetables. Eighty percent of government subsidies presently go to soy and corn which are used to create much of the junk food we consume. We need to rethink subsidies and provide more for smaller farmers and a broader array of fruits and vegetables.
  • Incentivize supermarkets to open in poor communities. Poverty and obesity go hand in hand. One reason is the food deserts we see around the nation. Poor people have a right to high-quality food too. We need to create ways to provide it to them.
  • End food marketing to children. Fifty other countries worldwide have done this, why haven’t we?
  • Change the school lunchroom. The national school lunch program in its present form is a travesty. We need better nutrition education and better food in our schools.
  • Build community support programs with a new workforce of community health workers. 

We can alter the default conditions in the environment that foster and promote addictive behavior. It’s simply a matter of public and political will. If we don’t, we will face an ongoing epidemic of obesity and illness across the nation.

For those with personal struggles with food addiction, remember it is not a moral failing or lack of willpower.  Here are five suggestions to help break food addictions.

1. Balance your blood sugar: Research studies say that low blood sugar levels are associated with LOWER overall blood flow to the brain, which means more BAD decisions. To keep your blood sugar stable:

  • Eat a nutritious breakfast with some protein like eggs, protein shake or nut butters.  Studies repeatedly show that eating a healthy breakfast helps people maintain weight loss.
  • Have smaller meals throughout the day.  Eat every 3-4 hours and have some protein with each snack or meal (lean animal protein, nuts, seeds, or beans).
  • Avoid eating 3 hours before bedtime.

2. Eliminate sugar and artificial sweeteners and your cravings will go away: Go cold turkey. Eliminate refined sugars, sodas, fruit juices, and artificial sweeteners from your diet, as these can trigger cravings.

3. Determine if hidden food allergies are triggering your cravings: We often crave the very foods that we have a hidden allergy to. 

4. Get 7-8 hours of sleep: Research shows that lack of sleep increases cravings.

5. Optimize Your Nutrient Status: 

  • Boost your vitamin D level: According to one study, when vitamin D levels are low, the hormone that helps turn off, your appetite, doesn’t work and people feel hungry all the time, no matter how much they eat.
  • Boost Omega 3’s: Low levels of omega-3 fatty acids have also been associated with depression, Alzheimer’s disease, and obesity.
  • Consider taking natural supplements for cravings control. Glutamine, tyrosine, and 5-HTP are amino acids that help reduce cravings. Stress reducing herbs such as rhodiola can help. Chromium balances blood sugar and can help take the edge off cravings. Glucomannan fiber is very helpful to reduce the spikes in sugar and insulin that drive cravings and hunger.

Please leave your thoughts by adding a comment below–but remember, we can’t offer personal medical advice online, so be sure to limit your comments to those about taking back our health!

To your good health,
Mark Hyman, MD

Please use the comment section below to share your tips, questions, and/or thoughts about this post.

CLICK HERE to subscribe and never miss a thing.

Naturally Yours,
Elise Ho
Ph.D., D.N. Psych.
Behavioral & Mental Health Specialist

Inspired? Pin this to your Pinterest boards.

6 thoughts on “We Are Not To Blame For Our Food Addiction”

  1. WILLIAM O'TOOLE

    Elise… I love food.. Perhaps that is why I am bigger than I should be.. but changing people’s eating habits can be very very difficult.. i think if you can change one habit a day every day then perhaps overtime things can change..I think it is very very hard for most.

  2. Wow, Elise, what a well researched and comprehensive post. Unfortunately I’m an addict of sugar like most western people… Even after having resisted for nearly 2 months, it was easy to fall back into the old patterns! Next month will be sugar free again!

  3. What a wonderful world it would be if fresh fruits and vegetables cost less, and prepared foods cost more — rather than the other way around. Here in northern Alberta, our growing season is so short that we can only have fresh produce from our own garden for 2 months, maybe a little more, out of the whole year.

    12 years ago, I lost 92 lbs in 8 months by eliminating all foods I was allergic or sensitve to — may of which Dr. Hyman recommends no one eat — and I felt so much better! I kept the weight off, as long as I kept those foods out of my diet. It’s time to go back to that way again. Thank you for the reminders!!

    1. Yes, it would be wonderful if they were less expensive but the cost of not eating them is absolutely not something that I want to pay.

      You are so very welcome for the reminders. Do reach out and let me know if you need some extra support.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

share on

Share on facebook
Facebook
Share on twitter
Twitter
Share on pinterest
Pinterest

About The Author

Dr. Elise Ho

Dr. Elise Ho

Dr. Elise Ho is a Holistic Health & Life Coach with a special interest in emotional health, life alignment, and energy flow.

Elise will partner with you to align your mindset, your energy, your home and your career so that you can live your life's desire with freedom and love.

Elise offers 30 years of experience and multiple certifications and degrees including a Ph.D. in Natural Health and a doctoral degree in Naturopathic Psychology.