Are you a food addict?

        When I began my fitness journey 10 years ago, it began with admitting that I was a food addict. Like any other type of addiction - abuse drugs, alcohol, gambling - the first step to recovery is recognizing that you are an addict. The problem with a food addiction, and the reason it has become so difficult to not only recognize, but admit, is two fold. First this particular addiction, has become normalized in American society. Today much of American culture is centered around food and a lot of food, supersized food. We continually stop to pick up coffee, sugary drinks, or fast foods, and our portion sizes are out of control. Second, we need food to survive. We can give up alcohol or drugs, but we can never give up food. Couple this culture based on food (the necessity of it along with the disease of overeating) with nutritional and physical fitness illiteracy and it's the perfect storm to create a culture of addiction that is senselessly killing people every single day. 
          
          Food addiction that results in obesity, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and a host of other preventable health conditions is, in general, still not thought of as an eating disorder. According to the American Psychiatric Association there are three eating disorders. The first two, anorexia and bulimia, result in a person being severely underweight while the third is binge eating disorder and is defined as"

"Binge eating disorder involves frequent overeating during a discreet period of time (at least once a week for three months), combined with lack of control and associated with three or more of the following:

• Eating more rapidly than normal
• Eating until feeling uncomfortably full
• Eating large amounts of food when not feeling physically hungry
• Eating alone because of feeling embarrassed by how much one is eating
• Feeling disgusted with oneself, depressed or very guilty afterward"

        At first glance, it it appears that this definition is attempting to call obesity created from a food addiction an eating disorder, but it fails miserably for  two main reasons:

1.  Obesity and morbid obesity is not caused by binging once or twice a week, it is caused by a continual over consumption of food on a nearly daily basis for weeks, months, years at a time

2. There is no acknowledgement of using food as a tool to deal with emotions. Just like an abuse drug addict uses drugs to soothe their emotions, numb their emotions, or make their emotions come alive, the food addict does the same thing, except food is their drug of choice. 

      I believe food addiction is a fourth type of eating disorder that needs it's own definition and treatment plan. Nearly 70% of Americans are overweight or obese. If nearly 70%  Americans were anorexic or bulimic we would all be screaming and scrambling to get mental health and medical services in place to help them get healthy. It's about time we recognized that those suffering from food addiction need help to. So, how do you know if you are a food addict?  Start by taking the Yale Food Addiction Scale (YFAS) HERE and then read your results HERE. 

    Are you a food addict? If so you can be recovered, just like I was!