Clinical audit: Best practices for Food Addiction Treatment

---

You Can NOW Get Your Ticket to the Hottest Event in Food Addiction Research! 

Welcome to the recap of the first-ever International Food Addiction Consensus Conference (IFACC) 2024! Held in the vibrant city of London on May 17, 2024, this groundbreaking event brought together 37 out of 40 top international researchers, academics, and clinicians. With 250 enthusiastic delegates on-site and 350 live-stream watchers globally, it was a day to remember!

Exclusive Content Just for You!

Missed the conference? No worries! We’re thrilled to offer you access to the IFACC 2024 videos and PDF's of the 

PowerPoint presentations. Whether you’re personally affected by food addiction or looking at it from a professional standpoint, these resources are perfect for you!

Star-Studded Speaker Lineup 🌟

Robert Lustig MD, Michael Moss, David Wiss, PhD, MS, RDN, Dr. Nicole Avena, Adrian Soto Mota, Dr. Vera Ingrid Tarman, FCFP, ABAM, Susan Peirce Thompson, Erica LaFata, Timothy Brewerton, and Dr. Anna Lembke. 

How to Get Access

Support our charity and gain access to this invaluable content! 

Here’s how:

1. Donate a minimum of £25.00 using the donate button on the right.

2. Email us at conferences@the-chc.org to confirm your donation.

3. Receive your access link via email within 3 working days and an alert from Just Giving.

Tip: If you don’t see the email, check your junk mail. Still no luck? Reach out to us, and we’ll sort it out ASAP!

Don’t miss this chance to dive into the latest insights and research on food addiction. Donate now and start exploring!

Make Your Donation Here:

https://lnkd.in/gEX4Nvyr

Your Conference Team:

Dr Jen Unwin, Heidi Giaever, Molly Painschab and Clarissa Kennedy

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.

​