Clinical audit: Best practices for Food Addiction Treatment

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Food addiction was defined in the International Journal of Neurobiology in 2016 as "hedonic eating behaviour involving the consumption of foods high in salt, fat and sugar, in quantities beyond homeostatic energy requirements." It is otherwise classified as Binge Eating Disorder (BED), "regularly eating large portions of food all at once until you feel uncomfortably full, and then often upset or guilty” BUT with a Food Addictions…..Food in general is NOT the problem, SPECIFIC FOODS or ingredients are addicting to an individual. These are the foods the individual will abuse and over consume. Moderation of these “drug foods" is not possible because one bite leads to one binge.

Food addiction can be defined as a cluster of chemical dependencies on specific foods, after the ingestion of highly palatable foods such as sugar, fat or salt, and develop physical cravings for those foods.

Over time, like drug and alcohol addictions, the progressive eating of these foods distorts the thinking around food, and the individual is unable to stop which is the result of a change in the person’s neurochemistry and neuroanatomy.

Typically food addicts have several rules to try to keep their behaviors under control, similar to how alcoholics and drug abusers do. The issues is when the food addict begins to eat, it is very difficult to not follow their rules and find it difficult to stop eating 

It is defined in much the same way as other drug dependence:

Eating too much despite consequences, even dire consequences to health

Being preoccupied with food, food preparation and meals

Trying and failing to cut back on food intake

Feeling guilty about eating and overeating

For food addictions, treatment focuses on identifying and encouraging abstinence from the foods that create the addictive response. 

 There's a lot of controversy surrounding the causes of obesity. Some believe it's simply a lack of willpower; that a person just won't control what they eat. Others contribute weight problems to genetics or lack of exercise. Now, in the scientific community, there's growing support for the idea of food addiction (people being addicted to food). It comes from animal and human studies, including brain-imaging research on humans.

Although there is no official definition of food addiction, it is defined in much the same way as other drug dependence: 

Eating too much despite consequences, even dire consequences to health 

Being preoccupied with food, food preparation and meals 

Trying and failing to cut back on food intake 

Feeling guilty about eating and overeating 

I have worked alongside the top addiction doctors who practice in the field of Food Addiction to develop this program. Weight loss WILL occur but most importantly my clients report that their biggest achievement from eating this way is the relief they feel when the mind chatter with food STOPS. The goal of this treatment is for you to find peace with food.

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