Does food addiction exist?

Close your eyes and think about your favourite food, the one you most enjoy eating because it’s the tastiest. Think about that moment when it enters your mouth: you savour the flavour, you bite into it and slowly start chewing, perceiving that complex in-mouth aroma, and then you swallow, sensing the wonderful aftertaste that lingers for some time. Think about the enjoyment you’d get from savouring that intense and pleasurable taste. Ok, stop there. Now, with this in mind, ask yourself the following question: if you’ve got that food somewhere in your kitchen, are you capable of staying where you are right now and forgetting about it or are you prepared to get up and go and do whatever’s necessary to get your hands on it? Do you feel almost uncontrollable cravings for certain foods? Is this the exception or the rule for you, and do you live it with only one or more than one particular food?

Food addiction among children and adolescents

The concept of “food addiction”, an approach which suggests there may be parallels between substance (tobacco, alcohol, etc.) abuse and the excessive intake of certain foods, has been discussed in several previous posts and especially in The Obese Brain, Numerous experts point to substantial and even clear evidence that the imbalance of our brain’s reward circuit may be attributable to certain foods and eating habits, along the same lines as what happens with substances considered to be addictive and potentially compulsive behaviour such as gambling. Though these concepts have their own peculiarities and specificities, the features they commonly share may be an interesting and useful starting point for designing new therapies and treatments in the fight against obesity.

Food addiction report

The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse is a nonprofit research and policy organization focused on improving the understanding, prevention and treatment of substance use and addiction. Few weeks ago they published an interesting report , "Understanding and addressing food addiction: a science-based approach to policy, practice and research".

On their website they explain the content of this document:

What are the most “addictive” and craved foods?

As discussed at length in the book “The Obese Brain”, the concept of “food addiction” is not new. However, in recent years, this idea has aroused ever greater interest in the scientific community and subsequently given rise to a number of studies. Though it’s still too early to draw any definitive conclusions from those studies with a minimum degree of rigour, there is no doubt that this is a source of highly attractive hypotheses. So... keep a close eye on how this research develops.