When most people hear the word addiction, they typically imagine someone who struggles with alcohol or drugs.
But there is another addiction that is common but isn’t always talked about.
And the hardest thing about kicking this one is you actually need it to survive.
Food, love it or hate it, everyone’s got to eat.
We’re not talking about celebrating a birthday with ice cream or having pizza on a Friday.
There are millions of Americans who admit to struggling with an addiction to food, as a means to deal with everyday stress, from marriage to children.
But first, it’s critical to pay attention to how addiction starts.
Typically, addiction is used as an escape to avoid a feeling. By drowning out the pain with a substance, it gets one through the day.
However, addiction is deadly, and if left unchecked, the consequences could be dire.
Even seemingly harmless activities like shopping or eating out can take a sharp turn down the path of destruction if they are abused.
Most people think of someone addicted to food and envision someone who is morbidly obese. And while this is true some of the time, food addiction can affect the petite slim girl just as much as someone who is overweight.
Addiction isn’t as much external, as it is internal.
Scary Mommy shared the struggle one woman faces:
“I wake up, completely resolved that today is the day I’ll break the cycle. No binge eating. No sugary foods. No eating my feelings.
Today there will be whole grain cereal and fruit! There will be fresh greens and super foods and lean proteins! I’ve got this. I’m Super Woman!
By 10:30am, I’m definitely not Super Woman. I’m super agitated, is what I am. I grab a handful of cashews and continue running errands, but by lunch, my resolve is already crumbling. Then a stressor hits. The pediatrician calls, and I forgot an appointment. Or the preschool calls, and there was an “incident” on the playground.
That’s when the proverbial cookie crumbles. Before I know it, I’m in line at Starbucks, ordering a quadruple Venti sugar bomb with extra caffeine, and a muffin. All it takes is one stressor, y’all, and I’m so far off the wagon, I need to call a taxi.”
Sound familiar?
If you’re like many women, you can relate. Life is stressful. You become agitated, and reach for something to calm you down.
The danger is that addiction messes with the brain’s serotonin levels, training your body to respond pleasurably to unhealthy stimuli, which means you need more of the substance to reach the same high again.
And those that market fast food and junk KNOW certain food is addictive, so they put in all types of addictive substances such as sugar and high fructose corn syrup.
This perpetuates the cycle of addiction.
Scary Mommy continued:
“In a scathing New York Times expose on the food industry, Michael Moss wrote, “It’s not just a matter of poor willpower on the part of the consumer and a give-the-people-what-they-want attitude on the part of the food manufacturers.
What I found, over four years of research and reporting, was a conscious effort — taking place in labs and marketing meetings and grocery-store aisles — to get people hooked on foods that are convenient and inexpensive.”
Yes, you read that correctly. Much like Big Tobacco, the modern food industry (Big Food?) has transformed something natural into a vessel of destructive health consequences.”
And marketers try and hook people when they are young, advertising sugary junk food to children with bright cartoon characters.
If you struggle with food addiction, know you are not alone.
Take it one day at a time, and try introducing healthy foods to your eating plan that will naturally make you feel satisfied, and will fuel your body instead of sugary processed junk.
And understand that no substance will ever fill a void permanently.
There’s no shame in having struggles, pray for the Lord to help you out of addiction, and He will deliver.
What are your thoughts on addiction?
Were you surprised to learn people could be addicted to normal substances like food?
Tell us your thoughts in the comments below.
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