Great article about addictions in the Harvard Magazine. It would be worth reading just for the story of how a researcher got zebra fish to crave cocaine. The article doesn’t discuss food addiction much, but does lump it in with other kinds of addiction:
Some of my takeaways:
- Eat with someone. Research shows more addictive behavior when people are alone:
Connections with other people interrupt the addictive cycle; they redirect attention away from the self-reinforcing feedback of the addictive activity that can quickly escalate to excessive levels.
When we are with a group, the norms of the group rule and all of a sudden it’s not acceptable to eat a pint of Ben & Jerry’s (unless they are like me).
- Ask for help: According to clinical instructor in psychiatry Stephen Bergman ’66, M.D. ’73,
“All addictions feed the ego, the self. The ego is insatiable. If you are into your ego, you can never
get enough–not enough drugs, sex, money, alcohol, relationships, not enough anything. Enough, that is, to feel ‘not bad.’ Many of these people don’t like it if they have to be in a room by themselves for a while. In 12-step programs, those who recover do it by asking for help. The connection has to change, from the self to a we. The only thing that helps is getting beyond yourself.”Some of us do that when we join programs like Weight Watchers. George Vaillant, M.D. and professor of psychiatry at Harvard, finds that having accountability, an external superego, helps.
- Find a behavior that’s not so bad for you:
“Say a drinker goes to Alcoholics Anonymous, sobers up, and starts drinking a lot of coffee and smoking cigarettes,” [Vaillant] says. “Then he quits smoking, by chewing the erasers off pencils and overeating, so he gains weight. Now his problem is obesity, so he winds up hanging around Overeaters Anonymous and drinking a gallon of water a day. It’s what teachers call ‘redirecting.’ You may not be able to stop two four-year-olds from fighting, but you can say, ‘Let’s go get ice cream cones.’”
Speaking as a mother of twin five-year olds, this analogy speaks to me! Let’s go get ice cream cones! No, wait…
