Comments on: Addict is just a six-letter word

By: Laura Brandon

Laura Brandon — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 01:09:23 +0000

Word.

By: Lori E.

Lori E. — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 20:22:23 +0000

@Ann – I don’t think that all overweight people are food addicts. Some people have other primary health issues of which being overweight is a symptom, like hormonal imbalances or digestive complications.

I also think it’s possible to abuse food without being a food addict, whether out of emotional response or habit or whatever. There are probably hundreds of reasons why people overeat. True food addiction is just one of the reasons.

If someone is truly a food addict, then I absolutely believe they can learn to manage their addiction with the right tools and environment. It would be as hard as someone learning to manage alcoholism, but it could be done.

By: liz

liz — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 19:39:07 +0000

I’m not sure it’s cool to write this in the middle of the “what name are we” discussion ..but… I found out I like turkey bacon today…who would have thought? I’m in day 3 of no carbs and doing good…

By: Liz

Liz — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 17:10:51 +0000

Wow! This post and all of the thought-

provoking comments are so making me cry and laugh, and my head is spinning around like the Disneyland teacups!

I am a food addict and a compulsive overeater. I can relate to so many of the replies to your post.

Superb post PQ!

By: Laura

Laura — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 16:30:39 +0000

It’s really called being a compulsive overeater, and the place we go is overeater’s anonymous. It is AA for food addicts, and even based on the same literature. I’m not trying to sell you on it or make you come to a meeting. That’s just where I found help. It is a serious disorder affecting those thin and fat alike.

By: deanna

deanna — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 13:44:06 +0000

I remembered a blog you wrote well over a year ago wherein you stated that you gained all your weight because you just liked food, that you had no emotional ties to it and that was it end of story. Now it seems that you have dug really deep and concluded that you are indeed addicted to food (me too! welcome! ), do you feel like a weight has been lifted, that you have the awareness and now just need to understand what drives it? Just curious! I have the awareness – that I stuff my face with food whenever a emotion hits but can’t seem to stop the train-wreck, my goal for 2009 is to do just that. I really look forward to your blogs, and insight, as you have helped me tremendously, just knowing that you are here writing whatever it is about – it’s support!

By: lurlene_tx

lurlene_tx — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 12:12:18 +0000

We are in the Dark Ages when it comes to understanding how our brain works.

I’ve always been particularly interested in those addictions that can’t just be stopped cold. I saw something on Oprah about various addictions and what it looks like in their brains. They studied the pleasure centers and how the addictions seemed to overwhelm those areas even when there ceases to be pleasure. It became sort of Pavlovian that the brain thought the substance would bring pleasure when exposed to even the thought of the substance.

I also wonder what triggers us to start using something to (pick one…zone out, hide, comfort, cope, numb, disconnect, etc.). Short of being raised never knowing what’s “healthy/normal” behavior, it seems it always comes down to figuring out what we’re trying to escape with our addicting behaviors.

I’ll be interested to see how others weigh in on this topic. Thanks for an interesting blog!

By: Jen

Jen — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 11:55:58 +0000

@Angie Burchfield-Solis -

“Crap addiction” works for me!

BTW, someone mentioned one of Michael Pollard’s books. He also has an online essay called “Unhappy Meals” at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/magazine/28nutritionism.t.html

(I think that he wrote it prior to “In Defense of Food”).

Thanks for another thought (and comment) provoking entry, Jennette!

By: Angie Burchfield-Solis

Angie Burchfield-Solis — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 10:24:17 +0000

Any addiction can be destructive. Even seemingly healthy ones like exercise or scrapbooking are destructive if it controls your life. It’s not the food that is destroying me. It is the compulsion to use food to hurt myself. I am not addicted to food. I am addicted to behaviors that numb.

The trick is identifying those behaviors, and controlling them. Learning to have a healthy relationship with food. Making wise choices. Choosing the whole grains, fruits, and veggies in sane portions, and fitting exercise into my day, everyday. And for goodness sakes, ending the propensity to drug myself with processed garbage.

I don’t know anyone who binges on chicken breast, asparagus, and brown rice. These foods are nourishing. The foods I am using to binge are the processed, sugared, man-made garbage which have helped numb the emotions I’ve been unwilling to deal with for 10 years.

Perhaps we could call it “crap addiction?”

By: rah

rah — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 08:43:29 +0000

There is some scientific evidence, although it is early in the game at this point, that there may be a genetic predisposition to eating disorders. Debbie Danowski reviewed some of them in a book, which I forget the title of… Like you, PQ, it doesn’t matter to me whether you call it an addiction or compulsion or what–it is what it is, and it is what we have to deal with. Danowski says something like “It is not your fault you are fat, but it is your responsibility (to do something about it).”