Compulsive eating is the main characteristic of food addiction. Like smoking and taking drugs (heroin or cocaine), junk food may be addictive. Too much eating of junk food like burgers, chips and sausages, program your brain into hankering more sugar, salt and fat-laden grubs.

Recently, researchers have found that bingeing on high-calorie foods can get you addicted same as cocaine or nicotine. These high-calorie foods can also cause compulsive eating and obesity. They were studying on rats, found that high-calorie food can turn rats into compulsive eaters in a laboratory setting and over consumption of high-calorie food can trigger addiction-like responses in the brain. More surprising report by researchers is that when they took away the junk food from the obese rats and replaced it with healthier foodstuff, the obese rats went on voluntary starvation. For two weeks, they rejected to eat barely anything at all.



Researcher Paul Kenny of The Scripps Research Institute in Florida said, "Obesity may be a form of compulsive eating. Other treatments in development for other forms of compulsion, for example drug addiction, may be very useful for the treatment of obesity."

The physical explanation of compulsive overeating may be accredited to overeaters, increased neurological sensitivity in taste and/or smell, increased tendency to secrete insulin at the sight and smell of food.

Signs of Food Addiction:

• Binge eating, or eating uncontrollably even when not physically hungry
• Feelings of guilt due to overeating
• Rapid weight gain or sudden onset of obesity
• Eating little in public, but maintaining a high body weight
• Eating much more rapidly than normal
• Eating alone due to shame and embarrassment
• Very low self esteem and feeling need to eat greater and greater amounts.
• Preoccupation with body weight
• Depression or mood swings
• Awareness that eating patterns are abnormal
• History of weight fluctuations
• Withdrawal from activities because of embarrassment about weight
• History of many different unsuccessful diets
• Eating little in public, but maintaining a high body weight
• Significantly decreased mobility due to weight gain

Tips to avoid food addiction:

• Exercising
• Knowing which situations trigger your hankering, and avoiding them if possible
• Drinking at least 64 ounces of water per day
• Relaxing with deep breathing exercises or meditation
• Trying to divert yourself until the compulsion to eat passes
• Avoid thinking about foods or viewing such photos/images

Recovery from food addiction:

Food addiction is treatable with counseling and therapy. About 80% of sufferers who look for professional help experience significant reduction in their symptoms or recover completely. Less than 2% of morbidly obese persons ever recover according to Dr. Gregg Jantz of The Center for Counseling and Health Resources in Edmonds, WA. Like other eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia, Food addiction is a serious problem and can result in death. However, it can be overcome with treatment, which should include, medical and nutritional counseling, and talk therapy. For the sufferer many eating disorders are thought to be behavioral patterns twigging from emotional conflicts that need to be resolved in order to develop a healthy relationship with food. Several Twelve Step programs planned to help members recover from compulsive overeating and food addiction.
 

You Might Also Like :

• Sugar addiction Treatment & Recovery program
• Chocolate Causing Acne - Myth Or Truth
• How to Determine the Nutritional Value of Food?
• What is Bill Clinton's Diet Plan?
• Rotating Kitchen At Eating the Universe Exhibition
• Sneezing and Runny nose after Eating? Why is it?