Food Addiction Can Be Emotionally Stressful And Physically Dangerous.
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
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
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
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.
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.