How Addictive Is Sugar?
Marching down the left-hand side of the homepage at My Addiction, there is a list of nearly 30 possible addictions. Sugar addiction is not lumped in with food addiction or eating disorders. No, sugar addiction is in a category all its own. And if there is one single substance that correlates with childhood obesity, sugar […]
Media Reactions to Yale Food Addiction Study
We talked last time about the validation given by the recent Yale study, to the idea that food addiction is a reality for some people. Of course, the story was immediately picked up and expanded on by numerous other media, all with their own particular slants. For basic information about how the study was conducted, […]
Why Parents Don’t Want to Hear About Food Addiction, Part 6
We have been thinking about not thinking, specifically about why some parents avoid thinking about childhood obesity in general, and about food addiction in particular. Part of the problem is that even if the latest theories about obesity are correct, it’s too late to do anything differently. For instance, the bottle-feeding versus breastfeeding debate. There […]
Many Doctors Believe Food Can Be Addictive
Can food be addictive in the same way as, for instance, heroin? Many doctors believe that it can. While some people are not very addiction-prone, others are, but are too busy being junkies involving some other substance, and food doesn’t do a thing for them. Not every person who eats is a food addict. But […]
Addicted Rats Teach Us Obesity Lessons
The connection between obesity, junk food, and addiction is becoming more and obvious. Remember last year, when the news came out about the rat studies at the Scripps Research Institute? Remember when we learned that junk food could be as addictive as cigarettes or Peruvian marching powder? For rats in cages, anyway. JoAnne Allen is […]
The Health Profession and Food Addiction
Here’s an interesting and disturbing fact. When The Obesity Society sent out word to its members to line up speakers for its annual scientific meeting in October, abstracts were requested in four tracks or categories: Molecular Mechanisms of Obesity, Neuroscience and Integrative Biology of Obesity, Clinical Studies, and Population Studies. We notice two peculiar omissions: […]
Sending Toddlers on the Food Addiction Path
Just when you thought you’d heard the epitome of absurdity, along comes another crazy notion to top the last one. How about formula for toddlers that is laced with chocolate and vanilla flavorings? Of course the stuff is marketed as not only benign, but actually healthful, because of its added ingredients. Apparently, it’s supposed to […]
No Cold Turkey on the Food Addict's Plate
Through anecdotal evidence found in their own lives and the lives of loved ones, many Americans have acknowledged that junk food is addictive. The researchers, while studying the reactions of brain and body to certain kinds of foods, are finding tangible, measurable indications that junk food addiction is not imaginary. Many counselors and therapists also […]
Junk Food Addiction: What Kids Say
Well, this is news that many people don’t want to hear, but, like it or not, we do need to pay attention to scientists like Paul Kenny and Paul Johnson. Victoria Stern has recently reported on fruit flies, personality problems, nanoparticles, and bacterial fingerprinting. In summing up the work of Kenny and Johnson, and their […]