Food Addiction: Understanding and Overcoming It with Self-Care

“A spoon for mom, a spoon for dad…” What seems like a harmless childhood rhyme can evolve into unconscious habits like “a spoon for my crooked nose,” “a spoon for being single at 35,” or “a spoon for a tough job and low pay.” And let’s not forget the dessert spoon for bad weather, which ruined your mood. The result? Disappointment and extra pounds. Psychotherapist and eating disorder specialist Tatiana Romanovskaya shares insights on food addiction and how to overcome it.

The Line Between Food Enjoyment and Addiction

“My name is Natasha, and I’m a food addict.” Is this our story? Yes, it is. While everyone depends on food for energy, psychological dependence, known as compulsive overeating (CO), is a real diagnosis. The issue is that people often confuse eating disorders with laziness or lack of willpower. CO manifests in binge eating episodes where individuals can’t stop eating, leading to feelings of guilt and self-dissatisfaction.

For instance, someone might eat too many sweets, knowing it’s wrong, or can’t stop eating more than planned, not even enjoying the taste. Behind such behavior often lie anxiety, depression, self-dissatisfaction, and loneliness.

Food Addiction vs. Substance Abuse

While we can’t equate CO with alcoholism or drug addiction, it’s still a dependent behavior with destructive effects on the body and life. It can lead to obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and high cholesterol levels.

Why Do Some People Become “Food Addicts”?

This depends on psychological traits and family history. Food addiction often starts with the desire to lose weight to please others, driven by self-dissatisfaction, low self-esteem, and the belief that love and recognition come from meeting high beauty standards.

The journey involves constant self-struggle, relapses accompanied by guilt and helplessness. The situation worsens with the accessibility of food that alters our biochemistry, making us feel better and leading to repeated eating during anxiety or irritation.

Does Every Overweight Person Have a Food Addiction?

People with CO often have weight issues or constantly battle with it, experiencing weight fluctuations: 2-3 weeks of strict dieting lead to a 5 kg loss, followed by binge eating and a 7 kg gain. However, not all overweight individuals have a food addiction.

Some people gain weight because they enjoy eating, find food delicious, overeat happily, and don’t worry about it. “Compulsives,” on the other hand, suffer. They want to eat differently, weigh less, and view themselves as having psychological issues with food rather than being lazy or lacking willpower. This perspective is more promising because diseases can be treated, while self-discipline is harder to achieve.

Recognizing Food Addiction

Signs include problematic relationships with oneself and food, loss of control, regularly eating more than intended, feelings of guilt, and dissatisfaction. Constant weight fluctuations and living in a continuous struggle with oneself and excess weight are also indicators.

For example, someone plans to refuse a bun but buys it, intending not to eat it. However, by evening, they eat not only the bun but also jam and cheese, vowing to start anew the next morning.

Tradition vs. Addiction

A daily coffee with chocolate is a tradition, not an addiction. It’s a sign of a healthy relationship with reality when someone plans their food intake for energy. However, ending up with guilt, dissatisfaction, sadness, and irritation over a box of chocolates indicates problematic food relationships.

Is Eating Only Healthy Foods an Addiction?

If someone experiences mental discomfort when not eating ideally, it can indicate dependent behavior and a desire to be perfect. This can hide high anxiety levels, a tendency towards obsessive actions and rituals, etc.

Breaking Free from Food Addiction

First, recognize the possibility of food addiction. Second, seek help. This is a psychological issue that psychotherapists, not dietitians, should address. To help yourself, normalize your diet by balancing your menu with sufficient proteins and reducing carbohydrates, without strict diets or fasting.

Next, work on your self-esteem. It’s crucial to have a realistic self-perception, stop fighting with yourself and your weight, and try to change your lifestyle to be happier and live more fully. In this regard, I support the body positivity movement. While I don’t endorse obesity, I strongly oppose viewing oneself merely as a body with a certain weight. I believe that individuals with obesity should not be ashamed but should help themselves.

The Stigma Around Food Addiction

In everyday life, such eating problems are often seen as laziness, lack of willpower, or weakness, deserving condemnation rather than treatment. People don’t recognize the problem, so they don’t get help and continue to lose the battle with themselves and their weight. This is a certain type of self-relationship: dissatisfaction and the desire to meet certain ideals, not just in weight but in other areas of life.

Most women with CO want to be perfect in the eyes of society in everything: a good mother, wife, and worker. They are not sloppy. They care deeply about others’ opinions, and their self-esteem depends heavily on others’ evaluations. Their goal is to reach a state where they can truly love themselves, but this never happens.

Therefore, awareness and understanding that food addiction is a disease are crucial. Normally, a person controls what and how much they eat. Plans include creating support groups for anonymous food addicts, a novelty for Belarus but a long-standing practice worldwide.

For more information on managing obesity, refer to this authoritative source.