How many times have you heard people say that they can’t stop eating cookies, or bread, or pasta, or candy? They may even laugh and say they are addicted to chocolate, as they pop the 10th truffle in their mouth. Well it’s time we faced the facts. We are addicted to many of the foods we eat. And when you really look at it, it’s not so very funny. You might even say, food addiction is a debilitating phenomenon.
Now why do I say that food addiction is debilitating?
It is often said that society favors thin people, and that the model for beauty is skin-and-bones. Now this is probably true and I don’t deny it. But you may be a size 14, and you want to be a size 8, and you know this is your ideal size, as well as very achievable. And yet you can’t get there because of all the cookies, pasta, and bread you eat, even as you say you don’t want to. Then you have a problem. And the problem is that you are fighting food cravings.
Now you’re in a pickle, and your self esteem plummets. You ask yourself, ‘Do I have no will power? Am I a weak-willed glutton?’ Now you go on crash diets. You begin to starve yourself. Your blood sugar becomes sporadic. You begin to snap at the kids and growl at your husband. Perhaps you spend 2 weeks doing this before finally giving it up. Now you go out and eat. For two weeks you eat whatever you want, whenever you want. On come the pounds you lost, plus a few more. And your self-esteem plummets even more.
Food addiction as it progresses will soon lead to extreme fluctuation in blood sugar due to the overeating of processed carbohydrates. This will cause bouts of lethargy and sleepiness, and irritability. Certainly obesity will set in, or perhaps a person’s behavior will become bulimic. Now the journey for the food addict is perilous. It becomes a psychological addiction to stay thin, inside of the physical addiction to eat more. By the end metabolisms are destroyed, diets on longer work, self-esteem in this area has all but disappeared. And the food addicts very life may be in danger.
People who take another path in food addiction often become anorexic. They decide it is better not to eat at all, than to fight the cravings, or be fat. This of course is life threatening. Now if you don’t become anorexic or bulimic, but you do continue in your addiction, by the age 60 you will be a diabetic. Your body will have used up its supply of insulin over the many years of carb abuse, and it will begin to deteriorate rapidly. In this case you will lessen the very years of your life, and those last years will be painful in myriad ways.
Still we joke about food addiction all the time.
Fighting food cravings is no laughing matter for a lot of people. But there are sources of help. There is a program called Overeaters Anonymous, which I attended for many years. There is also a program called Food Addicts Anonymous. Both of these will give you the support of other people on a similar path, as well as their experience strength and hope. You will also need a food plan that deals with food as an addictive substance. And there are many other tools I will give you in subsequent articles. But to those of you who suffer, I will just say, yes you can live a healthy happy life with food addiction. But you need to reach out.
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