Your love for junk food might be an actual addiction
Junk food, or highly processed foods – such as soda, frozen pizza, breakfast cereals and fast food – have been linked to everything from diabetes to cancer.
You know these foods by the ever-expanding ingredients list filled with additives, artificial flavors, coloring, sweeteners and preservatives. But just because they’re easy to spot, doesn’t mean they’re easy to resist.
A new study found that one in eight Americans over age 50 have an unhealthy relationship with these foods and beverages. In fact, the researchers suggest that this group demonstrated some of the core indicators of an addiction, including a loss of control over consumption, intense cravings and signs of withdrawal.
The researchers asked participants a set of 13 questions designed to measure addiction indicators. To qualify for addiction to highly processed foods, participants had to report at least two of 11 symptoms of addiction as well significant eating-related stress multiple times per week.
“There are similarities in the way our brains respond to drugs, alcohol and food,” says Julie Offutt, a licensed clinical social worker and certified substance abuse counselor based at Aurora Psychiatric Hospital in Wauwatosa, Wis. “The study states that highly processed foods trigger the release of dopamine in the brain’s reward system in a way that is comparable to some substances.”
Additionally, Offutt notes that excessive dependence on unhealthy foods can be considered a process addiction, or an attachment to a behavior or ritual.
“In this case the process addiction would be eating forbidden foods with unhealthy frequency, in excessive amounts, followed by severe shame and self-loathing,” she says. “Paradoxically, the shame and self-loathing contribute to the addictive cycle.”
Although 13% of all adults between the ages of 50 and 80 showed signs of addiction to highly processed foods, the results were more pronounced among women, particularly women between the ages of 50 and 64, with 22% meeting the definition of addiction.
Intense cravings were the most reported symptom of addiction. Nearly a quarter of participants said that at least once a week their cravings were so intense, they were unable to think about anything else.
“Years of research has led health care providers to view substance abuse as a complex disease with biological, psychological and social causes that affects both mental and physical health,” says Offutt. “These results help build the case that the same can be said of addiction to certain foods.”
Original source can be found here.
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