Is Food Addictive? with Abbie Attwood

<p class="">Have you ever felt addicted to food?  Like food just calls to you?  </p> <p class="">Or have you had the experience of being afraid to start eating something, like an M&M or a potato chip, because you'll probably eat the entire bag?</p> <p class="">Have you gone through the process of completely cutting sugar out of your life because you feel that that's the only way to not feel so controlled by it?</p> <p class="">These are all very common experiences that so many of us have had.  And they all bring up the same concept:  food addiction.  And they all beg the question, is food addictive?  </p> <p class="">You've probably heard that research has shown that yes, food absolutely is addictive.  When I was working with bariatric surgery patients, I read a lot of that research.  And I believed it.</p> <p class="">That research seemed to show, unequivocally, that food--especially sugar--is addictive.  It was generally performed on rats and looked at how hard they worked to get water laced with sugar.  And often, they worked just as hard--if not harder--to get to water laced with sugar than they did to get water laced with cocaine.  </p> <p class="">That's powerful stuff.</p> <p class=""><strong><em>The problem is, though, that the research doesn't unequivocally show that food is addictive</em></strong>.  At least not physically.  You know those rat studies I mentioned a minute ago?  Well, the fact is, the rats hadn't eaten before they were let loose on the sugar water.  So of course they behaved as though they were addicted to it.</p> <p class="">The second problem with that research is that rats aren't people...so......</p> <p class=""><strong><em>I can totally understand believing that you're addicted to food, especially sugar.</em></strong>  There's a very powerful narrative that sugar is addictive in our culture, and people very often feel as though their behavior suggests addiction.  </p> <p class="">But the research doesn't support a physical addiction.  Having said that, though, there's a difference b