These days almost anything you can do to excess is given “addiction” status. If pop culture is to be believed, you can be addicted to your smart phone, texting, gaming, tanning, exercising and junk food. Well, we hate to break it to you, but, even if you have a hard time saying “no” to those super-sized fries from your favorite fast food chain, this doesn’t mean you’re hard-wired to indulge.
In the past we’ve heard studies cited that seemed to show that eating junk food, particularly those products with high fat, sugar or salt content, can stimulate parts of the brain involved in seeking reward and pleasure. In other words, eating fries is not just fun, it’s addictive. This would put junk food in the same category as nicotine, alcohol and other addictive drugs. While it would be nice to be able to blame our junk food binges on science, experts are quick to make it clear that addiction has specific criteria that our cravings for sugar and salt just don't meet.
In an influential 2010 study scientists found that the brain circuitry of rats that ate unhealthy foods resembled the circuitry for rats exposed to drugs such as cocaine.
The study, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, looked at three groups of rats over a period of 40 days. One group was fed regular rat food; another was allowed to eat high-fat human foods such as sausage, bacon and cheesecake for one hour each day; and members of the third group were allowed to eat as much high-fat food as they wanted.
The rats that stuffed themselves with unhealthy foods gained weight quickly. Even when researchers applied electric shock to the rats for eating unhealthy choices, the obese rats still preferred junk food regardless of the pain. When researchers removed the junk food option and gave the rats a healthier diet, the obese rats refused to eat, starving themselves for two weeks after they were cut off from junk food. The results would seem clear. The rats were “addicted” to junk food, right? Wrong. For that to be true, junk food would need to affect the brain in the same way drugs do, which it doesn’t.
We certainly eat more junk food today than ever before. Between 2007 and 2010 adults in the United States consumed about 11 percent of their calories from fast food each day according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report. That doesn’t mean people are addicted to these foods. The fact that junk foods taste good, are cheap and are readily available are all factors that contribute to how often we indulge.
There certainly are disorders related to food including anorexia, bulimia and binge eating, but for now at least there is no official junk food addiction. The good news is it’s possible to make healthier choices, and you don’t need to go to detox or a treatment program to do it.
If you or someone you love struggles with a behavioral addiction and drug abuse problems, call The Canyon today. Someone is here to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions you have about treatment, financing or insurance.
