A Variety of Food Addictions

There are a variety of different food addictions that people can have, ranging from sweet foods, to salty foods, and even fast food addictions. These food addictions can be overwhelming to those that have them, and are a sign of an emotional problem that underlies the eating patterns. Often food addictions are a way for individuals to avoid dealing with difficult emotional issues in their lives. Eating is an instant reward, so the food allows the individuals to feel better for the moment, giving them that natural high, before plunging into the depths of disgust and guilt at having done so afterward.

Different names are often used for food addictions, but the three mentioned above are the most common. Anorexia is a food addiction that works in a way that is the reverse of an addiction to drugs, alcohol, sex or other eating addictions. With anorexia, the high is found in the control that the person has over herself in abstaining from food or only eating a small piece of the food that she has. This makes her feel as though she has control in her life even as she is systematically damaging the systems of her body through this starvation.

Bulimia is another form of food addiction that has some similarities to some types of anorexics. People struggling with bulimia tend to binge on all the foods that they enjoy, often eating an entire pizza, gallon of ice cream or other extreme treat until they are completely gorged on that food and then going to throw up, take diuretics to clean it out of their system, or exercise compulsively until they feel they have burned all the calories that they ate. Some anorexics will binge at times and then use the same methods as bulimics to purge the food from their system, but their normal mode of operation in regards to food is to avoid it or eat in extremely small amounts.

The last form of food addiction is chronic overeating, also known as compulsive overeating. In this type of food addiction, the individuals overeat either by binging regularly, or by eating constantly throughout each day. Instead of purging, however, the people keep the food inside which causes obesity. Although each of these types of food addictions look different in practice, they each have the typical cycle of addiction: partake in the addiction, get the high, plummet to guilt and despair, and partake in the addiction again to soothe the pain.