How much does it matter whether or not the client is invested in the addiction paradigm? For one, a recovering addict has to acknowledge the loss of control.

The longer society continues arguing policy and regulatory points, the longer we can put off needing to really do something.

The Food Addiction Institute (FAI) says that 87 million Americans are obese, and maybe half of those fulfill the FAI’s definition of addicted.

It’s not the food that is addictive, it’s the eating. This offers hope that the displacement mechanism may be useful in the treatment of eating addiction.

The big difference between overeating and the overuse of heroin, or even caffeine, is that a person can live without heroin and caffeine, but not without food.

Leaders in addiction science concur that addiction and obesity both reflect the consequences of ingestive behavior gone awry.

“Kids don’t get COVID-19.” “They don’t get it very bad.” “They don’t spread it around.” Simultaneously, things constantly happen to prove otherwise.

Some assessments ignore the mounting evidence that long COVID is a very real threat to children, and the links between COVID and obesity are ominous too.

A look at the tug-of-war between COVID-19 restriction loosening and restriction tightening as it has continued to play out over the past months.

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans was criticized for its too-cozy relationship with the food and pharma industries, and for conflicts of interest.

We listen to experts on what type of fuel to put into our car. If only we would pay a similar amount of attention to what we put into our bodies.

Research also shows that the average American achieves a score of only 58 (out of a possible 100) on the Healthy Eating Index quiz.

More the substance addiction vs. behavioral addiction debate, how it relates to childhood obesity, and how much the Big Food industry might be responsible.

Here we are in an obesogenic environment with a lot of obesogenic habits, and more to eat in a day than our great-grandpas had in a week.

Unlike some other influencers, who specialize in only one type, Big Food not only produces the substance but helps to form and mold the behavior.

If the food business is a game, we the customers are the pawns. If it is a war, we the consumers are the casualties.

Is food addictive in the same sense as heroin and cocaine? Or in some other way? Or in more than one way? And if so, what are we supposed to do about it?

A particularly revelatory and pertinent story was that of Howard Moskowitz, a psychologist with wizard-like capabilities in product optimization.

The Big Food industry was catching heat and tried to figure out how to deal with the emerging obesity epidemic. But very little came of it.

We’ve been looking at food addiction as substance addiction, or as a behavioral addiction. But the possibilities do not end at two.

Because we are human, some see food addiction as a societal problem, others don’t see the connection between FA and childhood obesity.

Some research shows that substance abuse is a question of personal vulnerability, whether it is physically based on genetic heritage or is psychological.

Veteran addicts had not become users in their own familiar environments, so many recovered when they came home. Let’s think about it in light of food addiction?

More recent research with different methods has shown deficiencies in research that concluded that all rats and people who use addictive drugs become addicted.

“Addiction” is quite the loaded term, and once the discussion turns to addiction in terms of food and in relation to obesity, watch out!

In reviewing the history of beliefs and research about food addiction, we can see how the significance of an animal experiment might be misconstrued.

For decades, the debate has persisted over the validity of “food addiction” as a thing that medical science should deal with or even acknowledge.

Many patients, post bariatric surgery, develop alcoholism “serious enough to warrant in-patient treatment.”

Amy and Tammy Slaton, morbidly obese adult sisters who won an eating contest and a TV reality show contract, are back.

Science has been looking at different angles, including brain activity, genetics, similarity to opioid addiction, cross addiction, and overactive hormones.