Step Five: Junk Food Addiction - Part 1

On October 20, 2009, Paul Johnson, a researcher from the Scripps Research Institute in Jupiter, Florida, spoke to the Society of Neurosciences at a symposium in Chicago. He told the audience how, in a recent experiment, he and his co-researcher divided rats into two groups. One group was fed normal rat chow, which is a nutritious, low-fat food. The other group of rats were fed high-fat, high-sugar, high-salt food. In other words, the rats were pigging out on junk food. After a mere 5 days, the rats in the junk food group were completely addicted. They loved it. How did scientists know this for a fact? Because they checked the pleasure centers in the brain. Gulp down the junk food, and the pleasure centers in the brain light up like a Christmas display. What was even more alarming to the scientists was the fact that after that brief 5 day feast, the rats didn’t get quite as excited by the same amount of junk food. No, they needed more and more and more for those pleasure centers to light up.

This addiction pattern in the brain is very similar to what happens to human heroin addicts. That is the reason people quickly become addicted, often after their first encounter with the drug. Sadly, it takes more and more heroin to have those pleasure centers in the brain light up. The need for more of the drug quickly escalates. These are the hallmarks of any addiction.

The scientists then took the first group of rats, the chow-rats, and gave them a shock when they went over to eat their food. The rats rapidly realized that if they wanted to eat their chow, they’d get a shock. What happened? They stayed away from their chow. However, with the junk food-addicted rats, the shock simply could not stop them. They did not care about the shock. Yes, it hurt them, but the craving to satisfy their addiction was much greater than the pain of the shock. No matter how much of a shock they received, they could not stay away. Just as a junkie will do anything, whether it’s legal or illegal to get to that next high, the rats followed the same pattern of addiction and cravings. They would not be stopped!

Finally, the scientists decided to see what would happen when they returned the addicted rats to their normal rat-chow diet. The rats shunned the food. For up to 2 weeks, even though the rats were literally starving, they would not eat the rat chow because that nutritious chow would not satisfy their cravings for junk food. The pleasure centers in their brains would not light up when they ate it. They experienced a painful and slow withdrawal.

OK, human beings are not rats. That is true. But, just like any addict, those of us who are addicted to food will struggle, mightily, to break our addiction only to fail time after time after time. In the drug world, they call it relapsing. And, isn’t that what most of us do? We try, really we do. We work so hard, but then, we slip back into our old habits, our old patterns. And, faster than the blink of an eye, we’re hooked all over again. Hand us the junk food, and go away, please. We want to enjoy our next food fix without your nagging!

Clearly, this is not about will power. This is about food addiction. So, what happens to people who have been eating junk food for decades? Their addictions have become literally hard-wired into their brains. They crave high salt, or high sugar or high fat, or some combination of all three. They need to get their daily fix. If they somehow resist temptation, they can become moody, angry, depressed, fretful, even disoriented. Family, friends, coworkers just wish they’d eat the donuts or the chips and calm down.

People who are trying to resist their cravings can really be a pain in the rear. Everyone knows the smoker, for example, who is trying to quit and keeps having meltdowns. Nicotine withdrawal is supposed to be worse than heroin withdrawal. Yes, people do quit, but it usually takes many attempts until they achieve successful withdrawal. Now, smokers have many aids for quitting. There are medications, patches, nicotine gums, smoking cessation seminars and a great deal of public support. However, ex-smokers sometimes say they miss smoking and the good, calm feelings, and pleasure they enjoyed. Are they glad they quit? Yes, of course they are. But, they also understand why they smoked for so long.

If food is used as a drug, just like nicotine or heroin or alcohol, how can people deal with this addiction? After all, we can make our homes smoke free, or alcohol free or drug free. But, we have to eat. We must go out and shop for food, which is our substance of choice. We must bring that food into our homes and consume it on a daily basis. So, is there really any hope?

The answer is yes. You absolutely can break the addictive cycle. Is it easy? No, it is not. That is why people fail to lose the weight and keep it off. While it is a lot of work, and it takes time and effort, it is possible to break the cycle.

What I tell people who are junk-food junkies is that their brains need to change. That is, of course, easier said than done because those hard-wired pathways are just that. If junk-food addicts even so much as think about their favorites, they will start to crave them. Why? Because those pleasure pathways light up in the brain just at the mere thought of them. They know if they seek out their foods of choice, they will have a feeling of inner well-being that is impossible to describe. It is as though, for a brief moment, all is right with the world. Therefore, once the cravings crank up, the hunt for the junk food begins in earnest. Once the chips or ice cream or pie are located, the food junkie needs to eat and keep eating until those pleasure centers in the brain light up. Over time, this process requires more and more and more food to satisfy the craving, unfortunately.

I had a client tell me about eating until she fell into a food coma. She said she would eat to the point where she was in a stupor and could not move or think or feel much of anything anymore. This is very similar to what happens to a heroin addict after they shoot up. They feel the same momentary peacefulness and calm followed by exhaustion. They fall into a drug-induced stupor. How many of us have seen someone passed out drunk? They’ve taken in so much alcohol that they can’t speak or walk properly or even move much. Their minds and their bodies are quite literally overwhelmed by their drug of choice.

Once a heroin addict or an alcoholic comes around again, they feel sick. What calms the sickness? More drugs, of course. So, the alcoholic will pour another drink or pop open another can of beer or uncork a new bottle of wine. The heroin addict will rob or steal or lie or cheat to get the cash for that next fix. It is the only thing that will calm the pain and the sickness.

Most people who crave junk food do not see themselves as addicts. In fact, they might pride themselves on never drinking or doing drugs. They are clean living. The problem is that in many ways they are no different from the drug addict on the corner or the alcoholic staggering down the street just after the local bar closes. Only there are no social sanctions that prohibit the junk-food junkie from seeking ways to satisfy their addiction. They can stop at the supermarket or the all-night convenience store. No one is going to say anything to the overweight man or woman who buys two bags of chips and a quart of ice cream. No one is going to deny a double cheeseburger and large fries to a customer at a fast food restaurant. Why should they? It’s a free country, right? It’s all about choice, right?

Well, no. The person who is addicted to junk food is a slave to his or her addiction. They are about as unfree as they can get. Yet, the shackles of their slavery are unseen by others. Those shackles are in their brains. If rats are willing to starve themselves because they crave junk food after a very short period of time, how can any food junkie change his or her self-destructive brain patterns? Aren’t they set for life? Isn’t it hopeless? Isn’t this why people lose weight only to fall off the wagon and regain it time after time after time?

The answer is an emphatic no! It is not hopeless. Is it easy? Again, that would be an emphatic no! When I was working to develop my own system for weight loss, I noticed that I had terrible cravings. I was a high-sugar, high-fat addict. I loved cakes and cookies and sour cream or butter dripping off a baked potato. I had no weight-loss coach to stop me from eating those foods. They were readily accessible. I knew that once I started eating a cake, I’d eat the whole thing. One slice was never enough. I’d eat a slice, and then another and then another. I was like someone on automatic pilot. I’d return to the cake over and over and over until it was all gone. Then, I’d hate myself, berate myself, but I’d do it all over again the next time. Why couldn’t I stop? Why?

That was the question I kept asking myself long before brain MRI’s, long before all of the recent studies about pleasure centers in the brain. When I was growing up, it was all about will power. Alcoholism, for example, was not considered a disease. If people drank too much, they had weak wills, weak characters. The same with people who did drugs or overate. Smoking wasn’t even considered an addiction. In fact, smoking was considered to be sophisticated and chic. Believe it or not, some doctors even encouraged their patients to smoke during pregnancy!

Of course, this was 40 years ago when people simply were not armed with the kind of useful information that is readily available today. So, all I had at my disposal was my own determination to keep trying to observe what I was doing and why. But, on so many levels, I simply didn’t understand myself. How could I be so disciplined about studying, taking care of my sick father, taking care of a house, doing so many thing well, but continue to fail miserably to control my weight? Food was my downfall. When food was involved, my self-control inevitably flew out the window. My resolutions failed time after time.

I’d tried all the diets, but nothing had worked. I had tried the diet pills that did curb my appetite, but left me shaky, nervous and unable to sleep. I’d tried the fads, the diet prescribed by my family doctor, the liquids, the artificial sweeteners, etc. Nothing helped. Each time, I went right back to eating and the sweeter, the higher in fat, the better. Plus, I noticed that with each failure I not only gained more weight, but I needed more of my “foods of choice” to satisfy that emptiness inside of me. I ate until I felt better, calmer, more relaxed, less stressed. I ate to nurture myself, but then, I hated myself until the next time….

In my next post, I am going to continue the discussion of cravings and food addiction. I will be listing and explaining my 12-Step Program to Stop Junk-Food Addiction. Please feel free to add your comments or share your experiences.