Food addiction is a mental health disorder in which a person eats food not to satisfy hunger, but rather to boost their mood and get pleasant emotions. For people with food addiction, food helps to cope with anxiety, anxiety, it helps to relieve stress.
With food, it is as if a person solves his problems – problems at work, in the family, in communication with people. For example – you are tired and stressed at work. What but a box of chocolates or cakes, can lift your spirits?
A quarrel with a loved one can turn into a real feast, after which comes the incomprehension and confusion of why it was all done. Food gives a person a sense of satisfaction, after which he calms down.
When a person “eats” his problems, he concentrates his attention on the taste sensations and his mood really increases, and his negative emotions disappear.
While eating, the person calms down and forgets about his troubles. In this way, food acts as the most readily available antidepressant. But if food and helps to distract from the problems for a while, they do not go anywhere, and sooner or later they will have to be solved.
Sometimes the opposite happens – the food addiction comes not from the presence of problems, but from their absence. At some point it may seem that life is boring, or sometimes people say that “boredom attacks,” or maybe a person lacks vivid impressions, or he simply suffers from idleness. In all of these cases, the refrigerator will be “waiting” for him.
The whole process leads to even more problems affecting the person and his self-esteem: obesity, lack of self-control, metabolic disorders, depression.
Signs of food addiction
Like other types of addiction, food addiction has a number of signs:
- Constant and obsessive thoughts about food – what to eat, what to buy in the store, what to make delicious;
- Inability to self-control in eating. For example, it is difficult for a person who has a box full of chocolates in front of him or her to limit himself or herself to one or two chocolates.
- a momentary sharp desire for some food. For example, in spite of having had lunch recently, if the person sees pastries on the store counter, he buys several pieces and eats them;
- If a person has experienced any kind of stress, he has a desire to eat something to compensate for the unpleasantness that has occurred;
- Frequent promises by the person to encourage himself or herself with “something yummy” after he or she has done some unpleasant necessity. For example, “I’ll clean the house and then I’ll buy myself a candy bar, because I deserve it.”
- Lack of desirable food leads a person to unpleasant physical sensations.
Causes of food addiction
Food addiction is an emotional addiction when a person compensates for emotional deficits through certain behaviours, activities and occupations.
The main reasons for food addiction are formed in early childhood: eating to make up for lack of love, acceptance, attention, resistance to negative emotions and fears, to acquire stress resistance through food, to receive comfort and support through food, to ingrain the belief that food is the main and safest source of pleasure.
Treatment of food addiction
Food addiction treatment includes comprehensive therapy. An internationally recognized method of treating eating disorders is used: a combination of psychotherapy, body-oriented therapy and nutrition therapy.
Usually, the treatment of people with food addiction is conducted simultaneously by two specialists: a nutritionist and a psychotherapist. Frequent meetings with the doctor, or better yet, with a group of the same people will constantly support, and motivate to follow the diet. As a rule, such sessions teach you to reconsider your relationship to food. Special programs are aimed at the realization that food is not a reward or a cure for trouble, but just a way to get the substances needed for a full life.
It should be noted that when trying to limit food intake, such people become irritable, aggressive or depressed. After all, food for people with food addiction is a medicine, a comfort and a doping. That is why such people continue to eat, even though large quantities of food contribute to a growing number of diseases: obesity, hypertension, diabetes, etc.
The main thing in the process of recovery from food addiction is to recognize the existence of the problem, to understand what the true need is: food or the joyful emotions one gets from it.
After that, one must learn to derive pleasure and joy from life in other ways. Joy hormones are produced not only by food, but also by many other things in our lives: sports, interesting hobbies, friends, dancing, etc.