Food is a pleasure that everyone should have the opportunity to enjoy. However, there is a thin line between food appreciation and food addiction. In any addiction case, an individual misuses a substance to self-medicate or repress underlying physical, mental, or emotional deficiencies. An unhealthy dependency occurs in which eating is no longer a source of enjoyment, but a form of internal mutilation. Food is to an addict what a knife is to a “cutter.”
Recently, I watched an episode of “Extreme Makeover: The Weight Loss Edition.” In the episode the woman used food as a coping mechanism to suppress residual scarring from childhood memories of parental abandonment. In the episode she discovered the father that she never met took his own life. She then came to the startling revelation that she too was committing suicide — “the slow way,” she said.
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A Psychology Today article reports that over 60 percent of the country is overweight. The article also lists seven symptoms of food addiction:
1. Tolerance as seen when an individual consumes a larger quantity of a substance to reach intoxication or a desired effect; or when a person experiences a markedly diminished effect when consuming the same amount of the substance
2. Withdrawal as demonstrated by a withdrawal syndrome or taking another substance to alleviate or avoid withdrawal symptoms
3. Consuming the substance in larger amounts or for a longer period than the person intended
4. A persistent desire or unsuccessful efforts to reduce or control substance use
5. An immense amount of time is spent on efforts to obtain, use, or recover from the effects of the substance
6. Because of use of the substance, participation in social, occupational or recreational activities are given up or reduced
7. Substance use continues despite knowing that a persistent physical or psychological problem is likely to be caused or aggravated by using the substance
