Hi, my name's Erin, and I'm a foodaholic

Some people might think you can't be addicted to food. But I've known for a long time that my feelings toward food are different from other people. And a study published April 4 online in the Archives of General Psychiatry backs me up.

I've been this way as long as I can remember. I compulsively read menus and restaurant reviews. I obsessively collect recipes, cookbooks, and kitchen paraphernalia. The Food Network is my version of adult entertainment. I can't pass a bakery without drooling. Lucky me, I managed to find a job where I can work with and think about food all day—like a shopaholic managing a clothing boutique.

In the current study, researchers at Yale University took MRI scans of 39 young women when they were given either a Haagen-Dazs chocolate milk shake or artificial saliva, which is has no flavor and is actually less likely than water to activate taste centers in the brain. They then looked to see how results of the scans correlated to body mass index (BMI) as well as Yale Food Addiction Scale (YFAS), which assesses signs of substance-dependence symptoms (i.e. your level of food addiction).

What they found kind of surprised them. They thought the centers of the brain associated with rewards would be more active for people with high YFAS scores when they got a sip of the tasty treat, but that didn't necessarily happen. Instead, people with a high YFAS score showed more activity in parts of the brain associated with reduced inhibitions and controls. In other words, eating the food wasn't more rewarding for them than for other people, but they had less desire to stop eating.

The researchers also found that a high score for food addiction didn't correlate with having a high BMI. You can be lean, but still have an addictive relationship with food. They speculated that this might put lean individuals at an increased risk of future weight gain, unless they can develop behaviors to compensate and keep control of their food addiction.

So, recognizing an addiction is the first step toward getting it under control, right? While I can't stop eating entirely, I can control what I eat. So before every bite, I will ask myself if I'm eating because I'm hungry or just because it's there. And I vow to really watch portion size, especially now that I know my controls to stop eating when full may not be all they're cracked up to be.

Instead of trying to fall off the food wagon, I'm hoping to catch a ride on the healthy eating cart.

Source
Neural Correlates of Food Addiction [Archives of General Psychiatry]

—Erin Riddell