Cake over Keto: Episode 11 - Help I think I’m addicted to food!

Love, hate, guilt, out of control, shame, fear, disgust, are all feelings associated with addiction. They are also associated with food, particularly sugar which is frequently described as evil, deadly and “worse than crack”. The question is, is food really an addictive substance like cocaine?

I see the word addiction being used too often when people talk about ‘bad’ and ‘unhealthy’ eating behaviours. There’s also a lot of shame and stereotyping attached to both, which certainly doesn’t help folk who are genuinely struggling.

There are many similarities in how eating disorders and addiction disorders are characterised, for example - cravings or strong desires for the substance, a persistent desire to cut down on the substance, but inability to do so and continued substance use despite social and interpersonal problems created by the substance

But for food to be addictive in the same way as a substance (like cocaine, alcohol, caffeine or nicotine), there would need to be a chemical dependency and the food would need to alter the brain chemistry and structures over time. There is a lack of consistent evidence that supports this theory.

Join Mel in this episode as she debunks some myths and unpacks some of the conflicting theories around food addiction. Sarcasm and humour also included.

Resources

These were mentioned in this episode and pick n mix.

The original study that drew comparisons between refined sugar and cocoaine on the brain (although this is not free access so you can’t see the original brain scan images nor true context) https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/52/14/910

News Headline (yes of course it’s the Daily Fail) Sugar 'is the new crack cocaine’ (warning – contains stigmatising language)

How to break up with your phone (book) by Catherine Price.

For extra info

A literature review of dopamine in binge eating: https://jeatdisord.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40337-022-00531-y