Eating like you’re addicted to food – impact on weight gain

What drives eating behaviours?‍

The obvious answer is hunger, but there is a bit more to eating than just being hungry.¹ There are various eating behaviours that are linked to the development of obesity. These include; subconscious eating (eating while distracted or tired), emotional eating (eating for comfort when stressed or in a low, or even high, mood) and addictive-like eating behaviour (where you cannot control your eating).²

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This article will focus on addictive-like eating, also referred to as uncontrolled eating. For more information on subconscious eating click here, and for emotional eating click here.

Food addiction vs uncontrolled eating. What's the difference?‍

“Food addiction” is a term that is still under debate in the scientific and healthcare community.³ Research has uncovered some similarities in the way some people react to food with the way others react to addictive substances (like drugs or tobacco). In general, an addiction is defined by a loss of control over consumption, increased motivation to consume and continued consumption even if it’s bad for you.³ 

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A more appropriate term than “food addiction” could be uncontrolled eating. Uncontrolled eating may appear like being “addicted” to food, because you lose control over how much food you eat.²

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What might addiction-like eating look like?‍

Addiction-like eating has been linked to impulsive eating behaviour.⁴ Think about how you behave around food, do you keep eating even if you’re not hungry? Do you eat to the point of feeling sick? Do you go out of your way to get certain foods? What about how you feel after eating, do you feel full and satisfied or do you feel insatiable (like you could keep eating and eating)? Consider what might be the motivation behind these eating behaviours as well as what and how. Take some time to observe and think about your eating habits - consider what motivates your eating as well as when and how you eat.⁵

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How does the brain work to control eating behaviour? ‍

Your eating behaviour is closely linked to the reward system in your brain.¹  As with all things related to the brain, the reward system can get quite complex, but to put it simply there are several parts of the brain that become activated and release the ‘feel good’ chemical dopamine in response to food.¹  The main pathway is called the mesolimbic dopamine pathway, and it is activated to release dopamine both at the suggestion of food (like when you see a juicy burger on TV) as well as after you eat the food (when you order and eat that delicious burger).¹ 

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These reward pathways are also connected to the parts of your brain that control hunger.¹ The hypothalamus receives signals from different parts of your body (like your stomach) as well as signals from the reward pathways and combines them to control how much food you eat.¹ 

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Problems start when the balance between the hunger control centre and these reward pathways is thrown out. Food that is ‘rewarding’ drives the release of dopamine, which triggers your brain to seek out more of these food types, even to the point of overriding signals from the hunger centre.⁶ You may have experienced this imbalance as food cravings.⁷

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