Health & Well-Being-Are obese people really addicted?
Many health care professionals see out-of-control eating as an addiction, but some research points to society's fascination with food as the major culprit.
Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston reviewed several studies, and found that the inability to control eating may be the result of the conflict between primitive responses and today's environment. The review is published in a recent special edition of Drugs & Society.
"Humans used to have to search for food," says Ken Goodrick, MD, with the Baylor College of Medicine Behavioral Medicine Research Center. "Now, food searches us out."
"The current food environment is characterized by excessive advertising, large-scale grocery displays and a wide variety of readily available, high-calorie foods. In addition, society's obsession with thinness and a high stress level often lead people to find comfort in food, and then go on restrictive diets to lose the weight.
According to Goodrick, these factors lead to out-of-control eating, because restrictive dieting causes changes in the brain that make overeating more irresistible. It is those brain changes, he notes, that parallel the changes seen in drug addiction.
"Many overweight people will say that they cannot control eating, which can be a great source of frustration to them," says Goodrick. "We need to understand that many people cannot control eating any more than they can control breathing."
The findings suggest that an important first step for these individuals to take is to stop the cycle of self-blame that often accompanies overeating. The real problem, according to Goodrick, is a mismatch between a person and the surrounding environment.
"One of the healthiest things a person can do is recognize that they are part of a larger system where it is important to eat and exercise the way our distant ancestors did, and to seek support from other," Goodrick advises. "It is important for people to stop struggling with themselves about weight."
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