Are You Addicted to Food?

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What the Compulsion Feels Like

It doesn't take a brain scan to see the similarities between someone addicted to drugs or drink and a compulsive overeater. Like the alcoholic who continues to drink despite seeing her life crumbling around her, the person with the food addiction will consume food to the detriment of her social and family life. She may know that her eating is harming her health, but it doesn't matter, says Gold. "I actually passed out once," says Terry Young, 40, of Cincinnati, who calls herself a sugar addict. "It was a total binge, with a gallon of ice cream, cookies, candy bars--like an alcoholic on a bender."

Young has struggled all her life to control her emotional eating, which she says she does almost as a way of medicating herself: She gorges to calm down after a hard day at work and fixes a big snack as a sedative before bed. It's gotten so bad that she's been known to steal her 7-year-old daughter's treats. "If it's in the house, it calls my name," she says. She went on antidepressants and says they helped.

"Like cocaine addicts who can't leave any cocaine behind, food addicts eat until no food is available," says Gold. "You might say, 'Yeah, I did that on Thanksgiving.' But food addicts do this all the time."

Patty White* of Los Angeles can relate. Her "drug" of choice is cheese of any kind, from Brie to the Cheddar in macaroni and cheese. Two years ago, the 45-year-old saleswoman gave up cheese for Lent, but as soon as that period was over, she binged. "I went cold turkey when I quit smoking, but this time, going cold turkey was a disaster," she recalls. "I went wild. I gorged on cheese at every meal, gained 5 pounds in 4 days, and just felt disgusting." Growing up, she saw family members go on similar binges--but they abused alcohol. "My grandfather was an alcoholic, and I see addictive behavior in other relatives," she says. "I'm a lot like them. But my excessive behavior is with food."

*This name has been changed

Is It Nature...or Nurture?

Addiction and obesity both run in families, and experts believe that genetic components account for at least some of a person's vulnerability. But animal research also suggests that the environment--mainly, how often you're exposed to an addictive substance--can shift brain neurochemistry, increasing the likelihood of food addiction. One hint that environment plays a role comes from studies in which animals were repeatedly given cocaine: Frequent use actually decreased the number of dopamine receptors, says Wang. If that's the case, we live in an environment perfectly designed to nurture food addiction. For decades, food-industry scientists have been working hard to figure out how better to hook people, claims David L. Katz, MD, MPH, director of the Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center in Derby, CT, and author of The Flavor Point Diet. Manufacturers now excel at hitting the sweet spot--making us crave more and more of a food. "In a supermarket recently, I actually found a pasta sauce that, serving for serving, contained more sugar than a chocolate fudge sauce, though the sweetness was hidden because the pasta sauce was so salty," Katz says. "The question is, why would anybody pour a packet of sugar over their pasta? And the answer is that if you get used to that much sugar, another pasta sauce will taste too bland. The food industry wants us to need more and more of the substance to feel satisfied, so we'll go out and buy more and more of it."

Animal research at Princeton University has also shown that the way you indulge may have consequences. Bart Hoebel, PhD, a professor of psychology, placed rats on an alternating schedule of 12 hours with no food, followed by 12 hours of access to both rat chow and a solution of 10% sugar (about as sweet as a soft drink)--a pattern that results in binge eating.

As the days went by, the rats began upping their intake of the sugar solution, drinking more and more at a time. Hoebel found that after about a month, the rats' brains were producing surges of dopamine during their binges. "In rats, binge eating promotes addiction just like binge drinking promotes alcohol addiction," says Hoebel. "It's possible that repeatedly bingeing on sweets could actually change the circuitry of your brain"--and make you want ever-increasing amounts.

Getting Straight

Researchers aren't ready to declare the case closed on the causes of our collective weight problem. "The research is interesting, but I'd never say that people who struggle with food and weight issues are addicted in a clinical sense," says Martin Binks, PhD, director of behavioral health at the Duke Diet & Fitness Center. "The evidence just isn't there. And the implication is that if you have an eating problem, you're destined to lose control--there's nothing you can do."

Yet the notion of a food addiction may help people like Dana Littleton. "At some point, I realized that I had hit bottom, just as an alcoholic or drug addict would," she says. Littleton took the same path that so many have taken before. "I prayed for strength to face what I had been running from. And for willpower--especially for chocolate. Then I got off my rear end."

Whether you look outside or inside yourself for the determination to stop your destructive behavior, researchers agree that it's important to recognize that you can change. High-fat, high-sugar foods may trigger some of the same brain effects as drugs like cocaine or heroin, but their impact isn't as powerful, say researchers, who point out that addicted rats, for instance, will choose cocaine over food.

While it may feel at times like a runaway train, how you eat isn't out of your control, says Susan McQuillan, MS, RD, author of 'Breaking the Bonds of Food Addiction.' Having a plan of action can help.

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