Is Obesity Considered a Food Addiction?
Obesity occurs when the amount of calories we consume is higher than the amount of calories that we expend. In addition, many changes in how we find and consume food have occurred in the last several centuries which scientists believe could be changing how our bodies process food. We have gone from a society in which many jobs consisted of manual tasks that increased the amount of exercise we obtained, and foods we ate were high in nutritional value which means we were properly fed after our hard work. Now, we no longer work in jobs that require that we eat as much food, yet we are eating as much or more than we ever have. Add to this that the foods we eat are not as good for us – are full of fat and sugars that, in the end, can be harmful to us. Nowadays, we are also better able to afford food. The portion sizes of the foods we eat are much larger than they once were despite that we need less of it, making the obesity a problem of epidemic proportions. The fast food industry has made food very affordable, yet we are being fed less nutritious food. Scientists have observed that high-fat, high-sugar foods found in fast food triggers changes in the brain that makes those same foods hard to resist. These changes are very similar to the changes seen in the brains of individuals who are addicted to drugs or alcohol.
Normally, when an individual eats, the brain responds to a hormone, called leptin, which is produced in the body’s fat cells and signals when you can stop eating – in other words when your body is satisfied and has had enough. Scientists have found some evidence that the brains of obese individuals do not respond to this hormone. Other studies have shown that junk food diets produced addiction-like behavior and changes in the brain related to dopamine, a hormone that is also involved in addiction. Unfortunately, this is a learned behavior – in other words, after an individual stops eating junk food, because the reward system in the brain has changed, resisting high-fat, high-sugar foods becomes very difficult. In this sense, many scientists believe that obesity could be considered a food addiction – especially in persons who compulsively overeat.
Obesity and Alcohol Addiction
There is some confusion about whether alcohol addiction causes obesity, or whether both conditions are a result of lack of control over food or alcohol consumption. From a dietary standpoint, alcohol has many calories which are what dieticians call “empty calories.” They are empty calories because they have no nutritional value. As a result, these calories can cause an increase in fat in the body. In addition, alcohol is a depressant, therefore, when drinking, most often individuals are sedentary (inactive). There is also the question about whether there is a genetic factor associated with alcohol addiction and obesity. In some individuals, overeating and abuse of alcohol are related because each of these activities uses the same triggers in the brain and both overeating and abuse of alcohol occur simultaneously (at the same time). In other individuals, if the brain has been triggered by use of alcohol, the individual does not overeat. Or if the brain has been triggered by overeating, the individual does not drink alcohol. In any case, we know that these activities are related. If you are having difficulty with weight control, and with discontinuing the use of alcoholic beverages, you may have some form of the gene that causes these behaviors.
Obesity and Drug Addiction
A hormone produced by the brain, called dopamine, may be involved in the triggers related to drug addiction and obesity. This hormone has been found to be lower in drug addicts and in some obese individuals. Dopamine affects the reward system in the brain, and lack of this hormone would drive an individual to eat more, or take more drugs to correct that lack of hormone. This means that food or the drug of choice partially replaces the lack of dopamine in the brain, and makes an individual feel better. There are still many questions about this connection between obesity and drug abuse, though the body of evidence that there is definitely a connection is getting larger.
Conclusion
As seen in the discussion above, the connection between addiction and obesity is very complicated, and needs much more study to positively determine the connections between the two disorders. Observations of human behavior confirm that controlling obesity is different from controlling drug or alcohol abuse. In other words, the same types of treatment do not always work with obesity that work with addictions to drugs or alcohol. This makes obesity treatment much trickier than previously thought. In obesity, there are many more factors involved such as the desire for food, things around us that trigger our desire for food, education about food and our ability to choose the appropriate food. Indeed, some believe that the answer to obesity lies mostly in preventing the condition in the first place.
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