You would never be pulled over for eating while driving, or being in possession of a large amount junk food, so there are no external consequences for you to deal with if you are a food addict. No one will stop you from overeating; only you have the power to stop yourself.
Substance addiction begins as a learning process for the brain. When someone ingests something that enables them to experience a rewarding effect, it activates specific circuits in the brain. Once they awaken this feeling, the behavior tends to be repeated, 'cause hey, if it makes you feel good, of course you'll want to do it again.
However, the rewarding feeling alone does not account for why some people develop addictions. We have to bring in the withdraw ingredient. People who abuse drugs and then stop will experiences severe withdrawal systems.
Even heavy coffee drinkers will recognize severe headaches when they stop drinking coffee. But once people get over the withdrawal, they should no longer be addicted, right? It's much more complicated than that.
Why do we see recovering addicts, who have been sober for years fall off the wagon, over and over again? It's a combination of psychological, neurobiological and of course social factors, that motivates the user to continue to keep using the substance.
There are specific circuits in the brain that become activated when we are in 'survival' situations, which usually involve conditions with food and water, mating and avoiding danger. But psychoactive drugs synthetically trigger these same circuits and trick the brain into responding as if we biologically need the drug in order to survive.
When we start overeating, the brain quickly 'learns' the relationship between the food, and the sensation you get from eating the food. Eventually it causes a strong desire and craving for it.
Have you ever said to yourself "I'm dying for piece of cheesecake"...? And then think of how you feel after you've taken that first bite...mmmm, like a sense of relief. Our brains actually force us to think that we need the food, or we won't be able to survive, and we can't tell the difference anymore. Now there's a little food for thought.
There was a study done in 2009 that used brain imaging techniques, in order to prove that people who are obese not only experienced similar behaviors but also developed the same brain reactions that drug addicts experience.
They study observed the PET scans of obese and normal weight individuals, looking specifically for dopamine receptors and counting them.Dopamine remember, is the chemical in our brains that sends us that 'feel good, ahh' feeling.
The result concluded that obese people had fewer dopamine receptors, and worse, the more obese the individual was the fewer receptors they had. The study further came to the conclusion that the brains of obese people looked almost identical to drug addicts, both having fewer dopamine receptors than normal subjects.
This study proved that overeating can lower the number of dopamine receptors in the brain. This is why people who overeat are driven to keep consuming foods that are high in fat, sugar and salt, because eating those foods prompts the release of dopamine. Since they have crippled their ability to produce it naturally on their own, the chemical addiction becomes evident when the overeating begins.
Research has recently shown that food addiction is a biogenetic condition, similar to an alcohol addiction, where the dopamine receptor becomes deficient. Just as the receptor has been linked to alcohol, nicotine and cocaine addictions, it has also been linked to carbohydrate cravings and compulsive eating.
Obese people have a deficiency in their dopamine brain reward system levels. In order to compensate for this, they consume excessive amounts of foods which develop into an addiction.
We can conclude that the brain of the food addict is induced to respond differently to addictive foods compared to non over eaters. In addition, due to the substance deficiency, addictive foods chemically increase the transmission of the dopamine, which creates an almost impossible combination to overcome.
When the dopamine is released in the brain, your mind becomes filled with serotonin, which results in a euphoric feeling. This will end up leading to compulsive eating in order to maintain that sensation. Tolerance will eventually build, which will increase the frequency and the amount of food needed.
What makes the food addictive though?
Addictive substances are plant life that has been refined or processed in order to be ingested.
This process allows for quick absorption of the substance into the blood stream which effectively alters the brain chemistry and changes your mood by flooding the brain with those feel good neurotransmitters.
Food addicts receive this mood change when they consume refined or processed carbohydrates. This results in short term highs, which are followed by longer periods of unhappy feelings. In order to get over the low, the addicts will feel the need to eat more. The addict will continue to eat in order to maintain the feeling until they physically are unable to consume anymore.
Most of our food supply today has been so overly processed and refined that it has become more a drug and less a nutrient. There are entire aisles in grocery stores that contain no whole foods at all.
This inadequate quality of our food supply is causing an increase in obesity and other health related issues. For food addicts, these highly refined foods act as mood-altering drugs with severe negative health costs.
The average person can recognize the poor quality in our foods; an expert doesn't need to tell us, we see it in the majority of our friends and in ourselves. Many people are beginning to realize and see what the effect the food regulations are having on our health.
The cost of health care is on the rise, and the need for prescription drugs has increased dramatically, but instead of getting to the root of the reason, the government, instead is spending their resources on trying to pass new Medicare bills?
Why is no one standing up to the government and challenging them to come up with a reason as to why all of this is happening? Why doesn't someone just come out and ask them, why the country is getting so sick? Why are we trying to keep it a secret?
Is it Government trickery or consumer denial?
There are a lot of people who don't know enough about nutrition, and or are resistant to change their eating habits to get healthier.
Food companies package their refined and processed foods in large quantities and market them with such enticing messages, that the general public has no idea what they are actually eating. Even if they do know, the average person continues to ignore the facts on how destructive these foods are and the negative affects these foods have on our overall well being.
This is a combination of denial, delusion and a lack of proper education.
I'm sure millions of people have watched the movie 'supersize me', but yet McDonald's is still profiting every year. It was following that release, that McDonald's came up with healthier choices on their menu, but the Big Mac still remained the # 1 item on the menu.
We have become so dependent on junk food that we're afraid to admit there's a problem. It's like people are afraid they might lose the junk food, and without it they might die...but the truth is, without it, you might actually get a chance to live.
Another reason there has been such a decline in the quality of our food is through the direct deceit we are receiving from our food manufacturers.
They are all aware of the chemical reaction we have with sugar, and know that if they increase the sugar content in their products, people will tend to eat more and therefore buy more.
Our groceries stores have aisle after aisle of unhealthy foods that, in my opinion, should not be sold without a warning label on them. These foods have absolutely no nutritional value to us, and contain harmful amounts of cancer causing chemicals.
What's crazy is that the organic sections in most places are usually only a 2 or 4 foot section within the entire store. More room for the addictive foods and minimal space for the healthy. You can clearly see where the advertising dollars from the food industry is going.
Obesity only tells part of the story of what processed and refined foods are doing to the country. There are still 35% of the population that are not considered over weight, but are still being negatively affected by the food industry's quality of food.
So what is happening to the healthy weight people? How are they surviving this epidemic?
These people are way over on the other side of the spectrum, using weight loss drugs, smoking, purging and excessively exercising to fight off the food predators.
All of us, one way or another is negatively being subjected to the disgraceful quality of the food in our country. Because of the amount of chemicals that are in our foods, we basically have become a country where we are feeding our pets better food than our children.
Did you ever read about that study involving the rats and their responses to high calorie foods?
Even though they claimed that the study of any animals cannot be directly applied to human behavior, it still helps us understand obesity and its condition to help us find a way to control it.
Just like humans, when the rats were given the opportunity to stuff themselves with high fat, tasty treats, they were more than happy to do so.
The rats were given some of our favorite foods such as bacon, sausage, chocolate and our most favorite, cheesecake, and like obese humans, quickly became dependent on them.
This study added to the claims, that excess food intake triggers changes in the brain, which creates shifts that develop into chemical dependency traits in the eater.
Just like other addictions, which include drugs and alcohol, over eating also enables the release of dopamine, the feel good chemical in the brain. When this reaction arrives to us through over eating, we eventually become dependent on that specific food providing us with that 'high'.
In order to see how over eating can affect the brain's reward center, researchers implanted stimulating electrodes in the rats brains. The researchers were able to monitor how the rats reward threshold levels changed when they were given the opportunity to overeat.
There were three groups of rats: Group one was only given one hour a day to eat the high fat foods, while group two was given unlimited access. The third group was not given any human food, and was only able to eat the regular rat food, which was also always available to groups one and two.
Naturally, the rats that were given the unlimited access to the high fat foods, were no longer interested in eating the regular rat food, and rapidly become obese. These rats reportedly ate twice the amount of calories than group three - the controlled rats. Even the rats that had only one hour a day to consume the high fat foods would eat almost 70% of their entire daily calories in that one single hour and started to develop binge eating patterns.
Similar to the rat experiences, human beings, when given the same opportunity experience the same behaviors.
In most over eaters, the dopamine levels have decreased, and it keeps decreasing as the behavior worsens. This means that in order to maintain the level of high they enjoy, they must increase the level of intake to get to that same intensity.
After someone stops abusing, it takes quite a while to get the dopamine levels back to a healthy controllable level. This can be unbearable for some people which is why overweight people find it so hard to stick to their diets.
When mice that were tested to research cocaine addiction were taken off the drug, it only took two days for their dopamine levels to return to normal, but the rats who were tested on obesity and given fatty foods, took two weeks before their levels began to normalize. Two weeks! That means it could take the effects of junk food 700% longer to leave our bodies than cocaine!
This proves that with all the processed food we consume, it is almost impossible for us not to become addicted to overeating. We need to eliminate all refined and processed foods from our diets to ever give ourselves a fighting chance to survive.
For more information about food addiction visit http://www.hollysdiet.com
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