Food Addiction is a Myth

In this week’s blog post I hope to educate some people who might be struggling with maintain a healthy weight. While my goal is to educate, I understand that I will also likely anger some. I am willing to live with this fact. In this post I hope to bust the myth of “food addiction”. I intend to do so with one simple concept, but again, I know that this will be difficult for some to hear.

This difficulty stems from how programed we are to feel like managing our weight is outside of our control. This happens through the media, advertisements, personal stories from friends, etc. The truth is that this is simply not true. Maintaining a healthy weight is directly under the individuals control. The issue is that we live in a world we were not intended to live in. Food was never intended to be this abundant. We were never meant to sit in front of computers all day instead of hunting or gathering. So, maintain weight requires us to swim upstream against the changed world.

This brings me nicely to the concept of “food addiction”. The term addiction can not be used when it comes to food because of one simple concept – namely, how you traditionally treat addiction. The treatment for addiction (if you really want to treat it as a disease) is abstinence. People addicted to alcohol should not drink alcohol. Drug addicts should not use drugs. Gambling addicts shouldn’t gamble, etc. If someone is truly “addicted” they should not participate in the addictive behavior or consume the addictive substance AT ALL! Not “sometimes” or “only on special occasions” – never! Abstinence is obviously incongruent with eating food. We all must eat (obviously).

So, there is no point in labeling someone as a food addict because the treatment for said addiction is non-existent.

And I understand that there are alternative ideas on treating addiction, namely the Harm Reduction Method. Again, the issue here is that the addiction is not really being treated at all. The goal is to simply “reduce the harm” caused by the addiction. The best example I can think of here is needle exchange programs where an intravenous drug addict can trade a dirty needle for a clean one. This obviously doesn’t treat the addiction; it simply aims to reduce the spread of disease (reduce the harm).

Labeling someone as a food addict makes them a victim. It strips them of power and control. It is, in my opinion, and awful, borderline unethical, thing to do to someone. It communicates that they are powerless against this “disease” and are not responsible. This, however, couldn’t be further from the truth. Individuals with weight management issues should instead be empowered to take control of their weight and, by-proxy, their health. This happens through truthful education, motivation, support, and accountability. Only through these methods can anyone truly manage their weight successfully. There is no “magic” pill, potion or shot. These simply keep people stuck and, most importantly, reliant on them (long term profits).