Maybe you're hooked on bacon, jonesing for a cupcake or looking for a chocolate fix, but is it possible to be truly addicted to foods? The idea is controversial, but as The New York Times reports, research on the connections between food, pleasure and self-control is pointing toward the possibility of certain foods being addictive, just like cigarettes.
One study looking at the behavior of rats eating large amounts of sugar found that the animals demonstrated signs of severe withdrawal when the sugar was taken away, symptoms like chattering teeth, tremoring forepaws and the shakes. When they were allowed to eat sugar again two weeks later, the rats dispensed it so frantically they ate 23 percent more than before.
But the potential for food addiction may be related to the type of food consumed, says Dr. Kelly D. Brownell, director of Yale's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity. People don't abuse whole fruits and vegetables, she says. "But when a highly processed food is eaten, the body may go haywire. Nobody abuses corn as far as I know, but when you process it into Cheetos, what happens?"
→ Read the article: Craving an Ice-Cream Fix | The New York Times
Do you think food has the potential to be addictive?
Related: Is Sugar Toxic?
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Hmmm.... I do get cravings from time to time for things like cake, ice cream, cheeseburgers, and french fries. But when something is addictive, don't you have to have it every day? I can go weeks without a burger, but then all of a sudden a craving will hit and I just HAVE to have one. Is that an addiction? Or just a craving?
If you've ever made the ham and swiss sliders plastered all over pinterest, then you know that YES- food can be addictive.
fat, sugar, and salt, so yeah.
Kelly Brownell is a he. :)
The NY Times notoriously mungs up the interpretation of studies. Here is the actual study, so people can decide for themselves.
http://link.springer.com/protocol/10.1007/978-1-61779-458-2_23
I'm not sure how you can see morbidly obese people and think food can't be addicting. As much as I am for personal responsibility and self-control, people do not reach 400lbs because they want to be that heavy, and are just deciding not to eat less. Once you are an overeater it is obscenely difficult to rope it in, and once you have a healthy diet and you are used to everything being saturated with flavor, your body simply does not want to give that up. Definitely something worth researching, and one of those rare areas of science that drug companies are willing to fund because it could lead directly to money in their pockets if they can figure out overeating in a way that allows them to curb it with a pill.
*unhealthy diet
How has comment editing still not been implemented?
There are a few things that I could eat every day of my life. (Eggplant parmigiana for one...) Does that make them addicting? I suppose if I succumbed to that I'd be an addict.
I don't know if we can blame the obesity epidemic on food addiction or if it's more the fault of the ballooning up of what is considered a "portion." Not only is fast food mainly crap, but the purveyors seem to be in a hellacious race to "biggie size" EVERYTHING. Who in the name of all that's holy can really drink 42 ounces of soda? (Sold by Burger King.) God above — that's more than a quart. Added to whatever other fried/fatty food in the "meal" that's probably going to be more calories than I'll eat in an entire day.
What the hell happened to the idea of moderation?
Of course it can. But this article misses the point. We're talking about sugar when we should be talking about fructose specifically. And it's not a matter of whether or not it is addictive - it IS addictive. In fact, it's been shown to be as addictive as cocaine and has an opioid effect on our brains and bodies. So when people talk about being addicted to chocolate or getting a high from it or not being able to live without it, it's not the chocolate. When chocolate was being in its natural form, raw cacao, nobody reported addictive effects. Not until the wonderful chocolate companies decided to add sugar (fructose) and LOTS of it.
One word - casomorphins. I had full-on withdrawal symptoms when I stopped eating dairy. Yes, one of the main elements of cheese acts as an OPIATE.
I am a sugar addict. No joke. Recently began a no carbs/no sugar(fructose mainly) diet ONE day ago, and I see pictures of donuts, or I find a tootsie roll in my purse, and I rationalise eating it, I droll over it, even knowing I cannot. I have great self control, so I know the longer I go without it, the better I will be, but I also know that given the chance, I WILL eat a piece of cake. Luckily, I'm in very good health, just trying to eliminate unhealthy foods I indulge in. But yes, food, the things IN food, can be addictive. My case is laughable compared to people I see around me. It's really sad.