Dr. Oz had an interesting piece on food:It’s one of the most passionate debates in the medical community: can you be addicted to food or is your overeating the result of failed will-power?

What is addiction? An addiction is a dependence on something that gives you short term pleasure and often create havoc in the long term. From my experience there are three main causes of cravings: one is the need to reward ourselves, the other one to numb ourselves with food we associate with pleasure and the third one can be a chemical imbalance causing cravings.

The first two sound similar but they have a bit of a twist. For example if when you were a child you were rewarded for good behaviour with food, you may feel the need to reward yourself with food every time you feel you have done something good.

For example I had a client come to see me because she wanted to change her lifestyle. She did an outstanding job until a couple of weeks later when after she had been ‘really good’ and started craving potato chips; this was really disconcerting her as she was wanted to be healthy. When I worked with her to find the subconscious cause for her cravings she remembered that as a child, when her and her brothers had been ‘good’ during the day, her mother would line them up in the kitchen and give them potato chips as a reward. If she did not get the potato chips she felt like she had not been good enough. Once we found and dissolved this pavlovian, she had no more cravings for the potato chips.

Sometimes parents associate food and love, and that creates challenges for the children later on. For example if when you are upset or sick mom cooks you your ‘favorite meal’, you will most likely associate comfort and that kind of food. The challenge comes when you are feeling down, lonely or sick as you may well now crave the same kind of food your mom used to give you to ‘nurture’ you. One of my friends after her mom passed away started to crave waffle even though she did not really like them  because her mom used to make them for her.

So is your food craving due to an addiction? A pavlovian? Or lack of will?

I believe that most people fall under the first two categories, they have associated the kind of food they crave either as a reward for good behaviour or as a comfort food, a kind of numbing of pain. The uncontrollable need to numb pain with a substance is often called an addiction.

Food craving is a complex entity that deserves personalized attention to discover the root cause. Most people have associated some type of pleasure or pain with different food and this will dictate what they eat. This is not a problem unless you are eating food that decreases your health. If you find yourself repeating patterns or eating that are causing you to feel sick, gain weight and decrease your self image, it is worth taking the time to discover the real cause for it.

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Love & Light,

Dr Lise