Food addiction: False hunger

Food Addiction Can Be Emotionally Stressful And Physically Dangerous.

Food addiction affects more lives than we can imagine. The physical symptoms people experience over a lifetime can also become dangerous. This disease is an example of the strongest connection between our minds and bodies. When we change the way we think about food, we can break the cycle of addiction.

There Are Three Stages Of Food Addiction. Weight Gain Is The Most Obvious Symptom But There Are Other Internal Symptoms As Well. In Stage 3 Of The Addiction We Witness The Development Of :

  • Diabetes

  • High Blood Pressure

  • Arterial Sclerosis

  • Blood Circulation and Heart Problems in the Hormonal System

“False Hunger” And Food Addiction

As humans our body is designed for to go for days without food. Our ancestors had scarce food supplies and constant physical activity. While our lifestyle has changed since our ancestors were hunting and gathering food, our biology has not.

There are two primary factors affecting weight gain that also must be understood in order to control our emotional eating and stop the cycle of food addiction.

Inside The Modern Eating Culture

Over thousands of years we have developed a culture of eating. Even as children, our accomplishments are rewarded with food, our pain is soothed with food. As toddlers our parents often used food to distraction to keep us out of trouble. Our emotional connection to food is reinforced constantly.

Perhaps the strongest association we develop is food as comfort.

When we crave comfort and confuse it for physical hunger, we experience, “false hunger.”

Happiness, success, love, enjoyment, intimacy and sex are natural and biological motivators. Unfortunately, in order to achieve happiness and success and healthy intimate relationships, we have to make an effort.

Food can simulate that same kind of enjoyment in our brain. When we eat our brain releases the “pleasure hormones” (for instance dopamine, serotonin) are released in the brain. But it is a short-lived feeling.

The problem is that food is easy to access; it’s cheap and convenient.

There is a strong temptation to substitute food for the pleasures, which are not easily available. We become accustomed to filling a deep longing for happiness, success and love with a short burst of pleasure.

Stages Of Addiction

Any addiction, whether to a drug, alcohol or food can be divided into three stages:

  • Emotional dependence – use for the purpose of enjoyment and as a substitute for other pleasures.

  • Physical dependence – Development of symptoms of abstinence. Cases in which people who are addicted to a drug for instance, continue to inject not only in order to enjoy but also in order to prevent the physical torture when the drug is not supplied.

  • The appearance of serious side effects of addiction – organic changes in the nervous system, problems of blood circulation, with the liver, kidneys, etc. When all three of these stages appear we can talk categorically about the development of addiction to food, where weight gain in the overt symptom.

These associated symptoms will cause a drop in the quality and expectancy of life. Many people use “hormonal problems” as an excuse and justification for weight gain. The chronology is in fact different; weight gain causes hormonal problems and not the other way around.

Food addiction is a powerful condition. Dieting alone cannot alleviate the physical symptoms of consistent overeating, and it doesn’t begin to heal the cause of the problem. The emotional dissatisfaction, whether boredom, loneliness or something else needs to be addressed. When you repair your relationship to food, then the weight loss and healing of the physical symptoms are possible.

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