Rehab for Food Addiction

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Food Addiction Treatment

Under the food addiction model, compulsive eating (of the type present in binge eating disorder) is looked at as a manifestation of an addiction to the effects of food, typically highly palatable and processed food. This type of eating is often linked to an eating disorder and poses serious physical health risks. These health problems make it urgent for people suffering from food addiction to seek treatment. But the nature of food addiction makes it uniquely challenging to treat. However, there are options that have been proven to work.

Turning Point of Tampa is one of the few healthcare providers that offer evidence-based clinical treatment for eating disorders, including food addiction. Read on to learn what makes food addiction different from normal eating, what the best food addiction treatment consists of, and how you or your loved ones can recover from compulsive eating and regain your physical and mental health with the proper treatment.

The Yale Food Addiction Scale

Much of what we understand about food addiction comes from the Yale Food Addiction Scale, a questionnaire that scientists at Yale University have used to explore food addiction. It applies the criteria for substance use disorders from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (known as the DSM-5) to a person’s relationship with food.

The Yale Food Addiction Scale is based in part on the hypothesis that highly processed and calorically dense foods (those high in fat, refined sugars, and carbohydrates) cause an addictive response in some people. Although it stems from this hypothesis, the scale can be applied to people who eat any kind of food.

The goal of the Yale Food Addiction Scale is to apply the framework of addiction that has been identified in people with substance use disorders to people who struggle with binge eating, various eating disorders, and unhealthy food consumption. This is a relatively new methodology for dealing with eating disorders and problematic eating. Applying the addictive model has the potential to expand treatment options.

The Yale Food Addiction Scale is used in clinical settings, such as a food addiction treatment center, as well as in research studies. The following are the criteria that the Yale Food Addiction Scale uses to identify food addiction.

Cravings

Like people with substance use disorders, people with food addiction have overwhelming urges to “use”. These urges are often to eat certain foods. The cravings can be distracting, distressing, and harmful to daily life. When not eating, they are often thinking about eating, either planning out a binge eating episode for later in the day, or regretting an episode from earlier.

Loss of Control

People struggling with substance use often have little or no control over the amount of drugs or alcohol that they indulge in once they start. Similarly, people with food addiction are unable to stop themselves once they begin eating. Binge eating is a key feature of food addiction and will be explored in more detail below.

Tolerance

In the same way that a person with alcoholism or drug addiction must use more and more of their preferred substance (or substances) to achieve the same effect, people with food addiction have to eat more food to get the same feeling of pleasure or relief that they are seeking.

Withdrawal

People who are abstaining from substance use after a substantial period of dependence are likely to experience withdrawal symptoms. Their bodies and minds have adapted to the presence of these substances. Similarly, people with food addiction who try to stop eating certain trigger foods are likely to feel anxious or upset when they don’t have these foods.

Unsuccessful Attempts at Abstinence

Substance use disorders are characterized by struggles to stop or moderate the use of the addictive substance. People who are addicted to food are likely to have similar experiences, attempting to cut down or end their unhealthy food intake, but are unable to do so in the long term.

Time Expenditure

Just as a person addicted to drugs or alcohol will waste hours of time craving, pursuing, using, or recovering from the effects of these substances, a person who is addicted to food will spend significant amounts of time dwelling on their eating, actually eating, and recovering from the effects of their outsized food intake.

Neglecting Responsibilities

A major aspect of addiction is its impact on sufferers’ functioning in their personal, social, and occupational lives. Food addiction can impair a person’s ability to do their job, be present for friends and family, and be in a romantic relationship.

Continuing Despite Negative Consequences

People with substance use disorders carry on with their use despite suffering negative consequences. The ability to stop once given a sufficient reason separates casual users from people with serious problems. Similarly, people with severe food addiction continue their harmful eating, even after suffering physical and mental health symptoms, being warned by healthcare providers, or ruining relationships.

Isn’t Everyone Addicted to Food?

Because we all depend on food to survive, the subject of food addiction raises the question: Isn’t everyone addicted to food? The answer is no. In the next section, we’ll explain what separates food addiction from a healthy relationship with food. But it is important to address this important difference between food addiction and other addictions.

Food is a major element of daily life. So food addiction is unlike any other substance use disorder. Human beings need food to live. Unlike alcohol, drugs, or gambling, food is not something that we can completely abstain from and still lead healthy lives. Patients cannot stop eating the way they stop abusing substances.

Some level of eating is always going to be necessary, so the goal of total abstinence that treatment for other substance use disorders aims for is not practical or desirable for cases of food addiction. In fact, there is a danger that a person recovering from food addiction could go too far in the other direction and begin restricting their food intake to an unhealthy degree. Some people go back and forth between these two extremes in a vicious cycle.

This risk factor does not exist for other addictions; there is no such thing as a person drinking too little alcohol or not gambling enough. So treating food addiction requires a nuanced and thorough approach, addressing psychological factors and underlying mental health conditions.

The best treatment options help people overcome food addiction without going too far in the opposite direction. A healthcare professional like the clinicians at Turning Point of Tampa knows how to administer eating disorder treatment without allowing patients to overcompensate and develop opposite but still unhealthy eating behaviors.

Food Addiction Vs. Normal Eating

The average person enjoys eating. Eating habits vary a lot from person to person, and between cultures, and there is no across-the-board “healthy” level of food intake. But there are some key features of food addiction that show how this eating disorder is different from a healthy relationship with food.

Emotional Dependence on Food

We’ve all heard of “comfort food.” It’s food that you eat when you’re going through a difficult time and need to feel better. But does occasional emotional eating for comfort mean that you are addicted to food?

Definitely not. While most people engage in “comfort eating” from time to time, food addiction is characterized by frequent emotional eating. In the same way that drug addiction is used as a method of coping with sadness, anger, stress, loneliness, or boredom, food addiction becomes a crutch for people to use when they cannot tolerate these negative emotions.

There are healthy methods for improving our emotional health. They include physical exercise, discussing one’s emotions with others, and seeking treatment from healthcare providers. But just like drugs or drinking, eating provides a quick way to feel good. Emotional eating does not, however, benefit our emotional health in the long term.

Our brain’s reward pathways are wired to give us a boost in positive neurotransmitters when we eat food. After all, we need it to survive. But when we develop eating behaviors that respond to emotional pain rather than physical hunger, we may be at risk of developing food addiction.

Binge Eating Episodes

Although food addiction and binge eating are not synonymous, episodes of binge eating can be a strong indicator that a person is suffering from food addiction. In a binge eating episode, a person finds themself unable to stop eating. They lose control over their consumption of food and eat far more than would normally be consumed under the circumstances.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, published by the American Psychiatric Association, states that a binge episode must involve eating a larger amount of food than what most people would eat, while experiencing a feeling of losing control. There must also be at least three of the five other symptoms. These include eating more quickly than normal, eating until feeling full to the point of discomfort, eating large amounts when not experiencing physical hunger, eating alone because of shame or embarrassment, and feeling guilty or disgusted with oneself afterward.

These features are also key indicators of food addiction. Food addicts are likely to eat quickly, losing control over their intake. As noted, binge episodes often take place away from other people, due to shame over the behavior. Food addicts often hide food and hide how much they are eating out of shame.

Certain trigger foods and even non-food items can set off binge episodes. Food addicts are also likely to have trigger foods. Rather than healthy foods, food addicts typically have an addictive response to highly palatable foods that are high in fat, sugar, and salt. This makes it difficult to lose weight, as emotional eating of these foods is likely to raise a person’s weight, along with causing high blood pressure.

Like binge eating, food addiction is likely to include eating past the point of physical satiation, often to the point of discomfort. Food addiction help often involves helping people recognize their natural hunger cues, which are different from food cravings.

Obsessing Over Food

People with food addiction think about food the same way that people with substance use disorders think about their drug of choice. They have intense cravings, often for specific foods, that interrupt their daily life. They may be unable to focus on other things because they are obsessing over food.

This obsessive relationship with food can harm food addicts’ relationships with others. They may prioritize their eating over spending time with others, isolating from others because they are ashamed to binge in front of them. Friendships and relationships with family may be harmed if people’s unhealthy food consumption is brought up as a topic of conversation and the person reacts negatively.

Food addicts may also suffer consequences in their occupational functioning. If their compulsive eating takes precedence over their responsibilities at work, they are likely to attract negative attention. They may even suffer legal consequences if caught stealing food.

Overconsumption Of Specific Foods

Everyone has certain foods that they enjoy more than others. But people with food addiction obsess about, crave, and overconsume specific foods. Often, these are highly palatable foods, meaning they have a lot of sugar, fat, or carbohydrates. Because these foods are fattening, people with food addiction struggle to maintain a healthy weight.

A balanced diet with servings from each of the food groups is important for maintaining health. People with food addiction overindulge in certain foods, typically processed, sugary, or fatty foods, and neglect healthy foods. As a result, they may develop nutritional deficiencies, as they are not getting enough of food groups like vegetables and fruits. Food addiction is one of many risk factors for diabetes.

People with food addiction may also have trigger foods. These are foods that are likely to set off binge episodes. Avoiding trigger foods may be difficult. People who struggle with binge eating disorder are often unable to enjoy meals with others, for fear that trigger foods will set off a binge episode and lead to embarrassment. This damages their social standing and self-esteem.

Eating When Not Hungry

While people may eat at specific times of day, regardless of their hunger level, healthy people typically stop once they reach the point of satiation. This is not the case for people with binge eating disorder and/or food addiction.

People with food addiction are likely to eat even when they are not physically hungry. And when they do eat to satisfy physical hunger, they don’t stop eating once they reach satiation. This is because their eating stems from psychological factors, rather than physiological need.

Part of the treatment offered at Turning Point of Tampa is centered on recognizing the body’s natural hunger cues. People with food addiction are assisted in tuning in to what their body actually needs, and their eating behaviors are monitored to ensure that they do not overindulge in unhealthy food consumption.

Denial About Eating Habits

Another thing that separates food addiction from normal eating is the denial associated with food addiction. People with a healthy relationship with food don’t conceal their eating behaviors from others.

As noted above, binge eating disorder is characterized by hiding food and isolating while binging. Food addiction, which is closely linked with binge eating disorder, can also share this trait. People with food addiction are likely to conceal the truth about their food intake from others.

This happens for multiple reasons. For one thing, people with food addiction may be ashamed of their eating habits and the loss of control they experience when binge eating. For another thing, they may fear having their eating habits interfered with by others who are concerned about their health and well-being.

Admitting that one is addicted to food is an important step on the path to overcoming food addiction. Mental health professionals and support groups alike emphasize that accepting one’s food addiction and eating disorder is necessary for recovery to begin.

How Compulsive Eating Progressively Worsens

One thing that links food addiction with substance use disorders is that both problems have a tendency to get worse over time. The compulsive eating that characterizes food addiction, often arising from underlying mental health conditions, creates a self-reinforcing cycle due to the risk factors described below.

Low Self-Esteem

Low self-esteem is another thing that distinguishes people with food addiction from normal eaters. People with food addiction are likely to have shame over their binge eating and may also have body dissatisfaction, as they may dislike the way their eating affects their body size.

People with food addiction are likely to experience rapid weight gain. The lack of control they feel over their eating disorder damages their self-esteem, as they blame themselves for their actions and for gaining weight. This can lead to shame and further lower their self-esteem, in what is known as the shame cycle.

The shame cycle is another element of food addiction that overlaps with the behavioral symptoms of substance use disorders. It describes the pattern of emotions that lead a person to a binge eating episode, and how each of these episodes sets the stage for further emotional eating.

A person’s low self-esteem, coupled with the stressors of a particular day and possibly trigger foods, leads them to use food to cope with these negative emotions. They then lose control and binge. Once they have finished binging, they feel shame, regret, and disgust toward themselves.

These feelings contribute to further low self-esteem. The person feels as though there is something wrong with them and that no one else can understand. They become further isolated, experience more negative emotions, and have no way to cope other than to return to compulsive eating. This cycle repeats, and the eating disorder gets worse over time.

Increased Tolerance

Increased tolerance is another way that food addiction progressively worsens. It is also another comparison point between eating disorders and substance use disorders. In both addictions, more and more of the substance (or food) is needed to achieve the same results.

Just as a person suffering from drug addiction will need to use more drugs in order to feel the euphoria or relaxation they are seeking, a person with food addiction will need to consume more of the foods they are addicted to in order to get relief from the negative emotions they are facing.

As the person’s psychological symptoms worsen due to the shame cycle, their compulsive overeating increases in magnitude. This leads to rapidly increasing weight gain, which leads to more shame and more food intake. This cycle is difficult to break. Mental health professionals are often required to assist a person in breaking out of the pattern.

Escalating Food Cravings

Repeated emotional eating creates and reinforces new reward pathways in the brain. People begin to unconsciously associate unhealthy foods with relief from their negative emotions. This leads to increased food cravings, as their habit becomes more deeply ingrained.

People with food addiction and/or an eating disorder are likely to find themselves having escalating food cravings over time. Their eating disorder may start off as something they feel they can control. But the feedback loop of lowered self-esteem, the shame cycle, and increased tolerance often leads to a state of helplessness. People suffering from food addiction may make promises to themselves and others that they will stop binge eating or refrain from eating certain foods. But their inability to manage their mental health independently leads them to return to these foods and behavioral symptoms when they get overwhelmed. Their shame over failing to adhere to these goals then becomes yet another reason to binge eat.

Once a person has reached this point, at which their food addiction is reinforcing and worsening itself, food addiction treatment from a healthcare professional (like those at Turning Point of Tampa) is likely to be necessary for them to break out of their unhealthy food consumption habits.

Eating Disorders Linked With Food Addiction

Although food addiction is a useful way of describing and contextualizing the behavioral symptoms and psychological symptoms of people who treat food the same way that other addicts treat substance use, it is not an official diagnosis in the DSM-5. However, there are some eating disorders that share characteristics with food addiction. It may be helpful to look at what diagnostic features each eating disorder has in order to understand what specific type of food addiction is occurring.

Binge Eating Disorder

Binge eating, also known as compulsive overeating, is an element of various eating disorders, but it is the primary symptom in Binge Eating Disorder. The diagnostic criteria for Binge Eating Disorder are as follows:

A: Repeated episodes of binge eating. Binge eating must have these characteristics.

Eating an amount of food that is markedly larger than what most people would eat in a similar time and under similar circumstances, within any 2-hour period.
A feeling of loss of control over eating during the episode, in which the person cannot stop eating and cannot choose what to eat.

B: At least three of the following issues:

Eating much more quickly than normal
Eating until feeling full to the point of discomfort
Eating large amounts of food despite not feeling physically hungry
Eating alone because of being ashamed of the amount one is eating
Feeling disgusted with oneself, depressed, or very guilty afterward

C: Marked distress regarding binge eating is present.

D: The binge eating occurs, on average, at least once a week for 3 months.

E: The binge eating is not accompanied by inappropriate compensatory behaviors like purging, fasting, or excessive exercise, and does not occur in the course of bulimia nervosa or anorexia nervosa.

That last feature obviously raises the question: what differentiates bulimia nervosa and anorexia nervosa from binge eating disorder?

Bulimia Nervosa

Bulimia nervosa is another eating disorder that can be clinically diagnosed in people with food addiction. While similar to binge eating disorder, bulimia nervosa also includes “compensatory behaviors.” These are actions taken to try to undo the weight gain associated with binge eating.

Compensatory behaviors include induced vomiting, use of laxatives or diuretics, fasting, or excessive exercise. Food addiction can, and often does, include these compensatory behavioral symptoms, which is one reason why it is not synonymous with binge eating disorder.

There are other features of bulimia nervosa that differentiate it from binge eating disorder. People with binge eating disorder are often overweight or obese due to the caloric excess caused by their binge eating. People with bulimia nervosa are more likely to fall within a normal weight range, due to the compensatory behavioral symptoms they engage in.

Another factor distinguishing this eating disorder from binge eating disorder is the focus on body image. People with binge eating disorder may have body dissatisfaction, but it is not a central feature of that diagnosis. People with bulimia place excessive value on their body shape and weight, and obsess over weight loss. While people with binge eating disorder have shame and guilt over their binge eating, in people with bulimia, this shame and guilt are more tightly focused on body image. This feature is shared with another eating disorder, anorexia nervosa.

Anorexia Nervosa, Binge/Purge Type

While anorexia nervosa is often characterized by excessive restrictions on eating, some sufferers may also be addicted to food. In the binge/purge subtype of anorexia, people engage in binge eating, as well as the compensatory behaviors associated with bulimia.

What differentiates anorexia from bulimia is that sufferers must be significantly underweight, defined in the DSM as having a body mass index that is less than 18.5 for their expected age. People with binge/purge anorexia restrict their eating to the point of starvation when not binge eating. They are also likely to be stricter about their compensatory behaviors. For example, they may induce vomiting to the point of completely emptying their stomachs.

Other Specific Feeding or Eating Disorder (OSFED)

This is a diagnostic category used for people who have the symptoms of food addiction, but do not meet the full diagnostic criteria for bulimia, binge eating disorder, or anorexia. They may engage in binge eating, but not meet the once a week for three months threshold. Or their binge eating may include fewer than three of the five issues necessary for a binge eating disorder diagnosis. In any case, people diagnosed with OSFED are still facing clinically significant problems with food addiction, and can still benefit from food addiction treatment.

Night Eating Syndrome

Night Eating Syndrome is an eating disorder that involves a delay in the typical pattern of food consumption, which should correspond to circadian rhythms. Circadian rhythms are instinctive schedules that follow the 24 hours of a day, and regulate sleeping and waking, mood, and body temperature. As you might expect, they also affect hunger and digestion, and can contribute to this eating disorder.

People with this eating disorder often have issues with their circadian rhythms, resulting in them eating more than a quarter of their daily calories after their evening meal. They wake up during the night to eat, have very little appetite in the morning, and are often only able to sleep well after eating.

What ties this eating disorder to food addiction? Night eating syndrome (like other eating disorders) causes significant distress and functional problems, and is tied to emotions. People are likely to have a worsening mood in the evening and become reliant on certain foods to deal with their feelings and get to sleep. People with this eating disorder have compulsive eating at night and struggle to stop eating during these episodes. Thus, Night Eating Syndrome can be one form of food addiction.

Ultra-Processed Food Addiction

As noted above, the Yale Food Addiction Scale was created partially to explore the addictive effects of ultra-processed foods. Binge eating disorder and other eating disorders are likely to center around certain trigger foods, and these foods are typically highly processed. To understand food addiction, it may help to look at what makes these foods so addictive.

Some level of processing is involved in creating many foods. But modern industrial food production has led to the development and distribution of some foods that are drastically different from whole foods. These foods are intentionally created to be overstimulating in their levels of the things that draw people to eat them.

Ultra-processed food may have added fats, refined sugars and starches, artificially created flavors, and almost no content from whole foods. It has little resemblance to anything that exists in nature. As such, the human brain is not prepared for the overwhelming level of pleasure that these foods create. Examples include mass-produced and packaged chips and sweets, fast food, soda and energy drinks, candy, and sweetened cereal.

These are intentionally created trigger foods. They set off the brain’s reward system. Intake of sugar, salt, and fat releases dopamine, a neurotransmitter intended as a reward for life-sustaining activities. The spike in dopamine is exhilarating, difficult to replicate, and habit-forming.

These foods also lack fiber and protein, meaning they are less likely to trigger the signals that tell the body when you are full. They are essentially designed for binge eating. These foods are also contributors to weight gain, high blood pressure, and cardiovascular disease.

Some Food Addicts Have Other Mental Health Conditions

The food addiction model looks at unhealthy food consumption partially as a form of self-medication. The positive neurotransmitters released by eating food are used to cope with undesirable feelings. Many people with food addiction suffer from other mental health conditions. The most common are depression, personality disorders, bipolar disorder, and body dysmorphic disorder. Let’s look at how each of these underlying mental health conditions could lead to co-occurring food addiction.

Depression and Bipolar Disorder

People with depression may find that eating food distracts them from their depressive thoughts and develop an unhealthy relationship with food as a result. People with binge eating disorder or another eating disorder often eat to cope with emotions. This emotional eating offers temporary relief by releasing dopamine.

Dopamine plays a major role in depression. People with depression often lack the ability to feel happiness or enjoyment. Processed foods offer a quick way to stimulate the brain’s pleasure centers. Additionally, depression reduces a person’s motivation, making them less likely to exert the effort necessary to shop for and prepare healthy food, and making fast food and processed food more appealing.

The physical symptoms of food addiction are likely to further exacerbate depression, as people who overeat feel sluggish and unmotivated. The resulting weight gain also makes it more difficult to do the tasks of daily life. Thus, depression and binge eating disorder (and/or food addiction) can reinforce one another. A study found that 29% of people with major depressive disorder met the Yale Food Addiction Scale’s criteria for food addiction.

Another mental health condition that frequently co-occurs with an eating disorder and/or a food addiction is bipolar disorder. This disorder is characterized by mood swings. People with Bipolar I experience manic episodes, with increased impulsivity. This can lead to binge eating, with people in mania consuming food very rapidly with no thoughts of the consequences. People with Bipolar II experience hypomania, which is less severe but can still lead to impulsive overconsumption of food.

The medications prescribed for bipolar disorder can also impact food addiction. The antipsychotics and mood stabilizers prescribed to bipolar patients frequently lead to increased appetite and weight gain. If not monitored by a healthcare professional, this side effect can develop into a full-blown eating disorder.

Bipolar disorder’s impact on sleep can also lead to overlap with Night Eating Syndrome. People with bipolar disorder may develop this eating disorder, as their lack of sleep leads to cravings for ultra-processed foods late at night. One limited study found that 68% of individuals with bipolar I were overweight or obese, possibly due to these factors.

Personality Disorders

Personality disorders often co-occur with food addiction and/or eating disorders. Although the symptoms of these mental health conditions vary widely across the three clusters, there are some common traits among them that predispose sufferers to also having an eating disorder or food addiction.

Antisocial Personality Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder both feature impulsivity as a symptom. Binge eating disorder is driven by an inability to control the impulse to eat, particularly once one has started eating. People with these mental health conditions are likely to be unable to resist their cravings for food.

Borderline Personality Disorder also features negative or unstable self-perception, leading to the use of addictive substances to cope. People with BPD may become addicted to food as a way of managing their low self-esteem. They also fear abandonment. Food can serve as a replacement for the interpersonal connections they are missing. Similarly, Avoidant Personality Disorder features social withdrawal as a symptom. People with this mental health condition may use food to numb their feelings of loneliness.

Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder can lead to obsessive thoughts about food, and the rigid cycles of restriction and bingeing that characterize bulimia and anorexia nervosa, binge/purge type. And people with Dependent Personality Disorder, when separated from the person they depend on, may turn to food for comfort.

Body Dysmorphic Disorder

Body dysmorphic disorder represents a clinically significant version of body dissatisfaction, which is a feature of eating disorders, including bulimia and anorexia. Individuals with body dysmorphic disorder have obsessive concerns about how they look to others. This can take the form of an obsession with weight, in which case it can lead to an eating disorder.

People with body dysmorphic disorder may obsess over weight loss and have deep shame about their body shape. This can trigger the shame cycle described above, as they engage in emotional eating to cope with their poor self-esteem, and then feel worse about themselves due to their failure to live up to their perfectionist ideal.

Body dysmorphic disorder often co-exists with an eating disorder, particularly with anorexia or bulimia. It is less likely to exist alongside binge eating disorder, as binge eating disorder does not include compensatory behaviors and has less of a focus on weight. One study found that 39% of patients with bulimia also had body dysmorphic disorder.

Some people with Body Dysmorphic Disorder, particularly men, may obsess over their size in a different way. They may feel as though they appear small and weak and need to add muscle mass. These people may develop food addiction or binge eating disorder as they attempt to pack on pounds and consume enough protein to get bigger.

National Eating Disorders Association Recommended Treatment Options

If you or someone you love has a food addiction, they may benefit from food addiction treatment. Turning Point of Tampa is one of the select healthcare providers that is capable of treating an eating disorder, as well as other mental health conditions that often accompany eating disorders.

The National Eating Disorders Association recommends the following treatment options for eating disorders, all of which are utilized at Turning Point of Tampa.

Nutritional Counseling

A person with an eating disorder often requires guidance in how to establish healthy eating habits. Turning Point of Tampa employs a registered dietitian to counsel eating disorder clients on how to make decisions about food and overcome food addiction.

People with an eating disorder have often lost touch with their body’s actual needs, and neglect the healthy food groups to focus on highly palatable foods. This means that despite ingesting high amounts of calories, they may actually be malnourished.

Food addiction treatment will often include meal planning, helping patients get enough of each of the essential food groups while avoiding trigger foods. As noted above, conditions like binge eating disorder can sometimes rebound into another, more restrictive eating disorder focused on weight loss, like anorexia. A registered dietitian is equipped to make sure a person’s recovery does not rebound into another eating disorder.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, is one of the recommended therapeutic options for people struggling with food addiction and/or an eating disorder. CBT focuses on negative thought patterns that lead people into maladaptive behaviors, like binge eating or purging. The goal is to help a person break out of the cycle of emotional stress, trigger foods, and shame that characterizes an eating disorder. They develop a newer, healthier relationship with food. They may also identify non-food items and situations that can trigger a relapse, and help patients to overcome their sensitivity to these triggers.

Other mental health treatment options are likely to be used as well. For patients with personality disorders, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) can be helpful for regulating the extreme emotions that lead to emotional eating and binges. It helps people build their distress tolerance and use mindfulness skills to manage urges to binge.

People with food addiction may also benefit from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), which is focused on assisting individuals in accepting their problematic thoughts without acting on them, while committing to healthier behaviors in the future.

Medical Monitoring and Medication Management

An essential part of food addiction treatment is medical monitoring and the administration of medication where necessary. Binge eating disorder and other eating disorders often result in serious medical issues. Overeating of the type seen in binge eating disorder has many health risks. These include obesity in some patients, as frequent binges can lead to significant weight gain. These are likely to be addressed by a dietitian.

But there are other health risks that require medical monitoring by healthcare providers during treatment. People with food addiction may have high cholesterol. And they are at higher risk for cardiovascular disease, as binge eating disorder raises LDL cholesterol and triglycerides. Cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death worldwide.

Binge eating disorder and/or food addiction can also lead to type 2 diabetes. Repeated spikes in blood sugar and insulin resistance increase diabetes risk. People with food addiction are likely to have high blood pressure (hypertension), as the highly palatable foods they consume are often high in sodium.

People with food addiction are likely to suffer from gastrointestinal issues, including stomach pain and acid reflux. Acid reflux often persists beyond the cessation of binge eating. Antacid medications may be prescribed to treat acid reflux. They may also be at risk for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, which is heavily linked with overeating. Urine tests may be used to check liver functioning.

Heavier weight and late-night binges can worsen sleep apnea or insomnia. People with Night Eating Syndrome are likely to suffer severe insomnia during eating disorder treatment.

Support Groups

Among the most important elements of treatment for food addiction and/or an eating disorder is the introduction of support groups. This is another of the treatment options that carries over from the substance use disorder treatment model.

Understanding food addiction as a compulsive drive that stems from underlying mental health conditions, mental health professionals recognize that their treatment protocols can only last so long. People cannot remain in inpatient treatment forever. They must develop routines that allow them to treat and manage their eating disorder once they reenter the “real world.” Support groups are a great way to establish these routines.

There are different support groups for each eating disorder. People with food addiction and/or binge eating disorder are most likely to benefit from Overeaters Anonymous, one of the most active fellowships. Overeaters Anonymous is modeled after the 12-step framework used in Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, and the many other 12-step programs that have developed since Alcoholics Anonymous was founded in 1935.

The 12 steps are a structured way of approaching recovery from a compulsive behavior, in this case, an eating disorder. The first step asks members to admit that they are powerless over food, and that their lives have become unmanageable. As noted above, this is an important element of food addiction. The issue is not just confined to eating. The disordered eating behavior causes consequences for other areas of a person’s life, including their occupational, social, and educational functioning, as well as their health. Recognizing that they are powerless over their eating is an important step toward recovery.

The second step asks members to believe that a power greater than themselves can restore them to sane thinking and eating. While this may turn away some people who are skeptical of religion, it’s important to note that this higher power does not need to be a religious figure. For many people, the higher power is simply the group itself. The word God is used to represent this higher power, but OA literature is very clear in indicating that belief in any particular God is not a necessity for participation.

In the third step, OA members make a decision to turn their lives over to their chosen higher power, whatever that may be. A person with an eating disorder has already turned their life over to food. To sustain lasting recovery, many believe that a different and more sustainable power must be substituted.

The fourth step asks OA members to make a searching and fearless moral inventory. They are asked to look at how resentments toward other people, deeply held fears, and their conduct in relationships have contributed to their unhealthy relationship with food. This takes the form of a written inventory of all of these elements of their food addiction. In the fifth step, they share what they have written, typically with a sponsor. A sponsor is someone who has achieved lasting recovery from their food addiction and now takes new OA members through the steps.

In the sixth and seventh steps, OA members examine the defects in their character. These may relate directly to food, but they may also relate to other parts of their character that contribute to their reliance on food as their higher power. In step seven, they ask their higher power to remove these defects, so that they can ultimately overcome food addiction.

Step eight asks members of Overeaters Anonymous to list people they have harmed, both directly through their addiction and through other actions they have taken, and to become willing to make amends to these people (except when doing so would be injurious to others). Step nine asks them to make amends to these people. These steps are important for relieving the guilt and shame that fuel continued binge eating. People who engage in binge eating often do so because they feel that they are fundamentally broken and bad people. Making amends can clear the conscience and improve one’s self-esteem, an important step toward long-term recovery from an eating disorder.

In step ten, OA members take a personal inventory every day and admit when they have been wrong. Many share this inventory with their sponsor or another trusted friend. They may include moments throughout their day when they were tempted to engage in binge eating. Laying these moments down on paper and sharing them with another person can rob them of their power and interrupt the process of premeditation that leads up to a binge eating episode.

Step eleven encourages the use of prayer and meditation to further develop the relationship with a higher power. Many people find prayer to be a useful tool when they are experiencing overwhelming urges to act out on their binge eating disorder or addiction to food.

Finally, in step twelve, Overeaters Anonymous members carry the message to other people who engage in compulsive overeating and strive to practice what they have learned in all of their affairs. People are able to attain lasting recovery from their eating disorder by sharing it with others through sponsorship and by sharing at meetings.

OA and other support groups, like Eating Disorders Anonymous, are a great way for people leaving food addiction treatment to stay connected with others who struggle with food addiction. At Turning Point of Tampa, patients in eating disorder treatment are introduced to these support groups and encouraged to stay engaged with them following treatment.

How You Can Overcome Food Addiction

If you or a loved one is struggling with food addiction, Turning Point of Tampa can help. Their clinicians are trained to improve patients’ physical and mental health for the long term, addressing problematic eating habits, underlying mental health conditions, and the traumatic roots of each individual’s eating disorder. With each individual assigned a dietitian and a therapist, every person is treated for each aspect of their unique challenges. Take the first step toward recovery from food addiction and reach out to Turning Point today.