Food addiction, or any other addiction, is defined as a behavioral disorder. A behavioral disorder is “the experience of the individual rather

than his or her physiology” (Gearhardt and Corbin 167).

We are able tonotice and characterize someone as an

addict by using the “addiction cycle: binge/intoxication,

withdrawal/negative affect, and preoccupation/

anticipation” (Koob 20). These three stages can be used

as long as the reliance of a substance is known. The main

contributor of any addiction is an environmental influence:

something that influences bad behavior in the environment

around you. In the case of food addiction, the environmental

influence is the high energy dense food, or carbohydrate dense

food, that is easily accessible in the world today. Before we can

further understand what the three stages of the addiction cycle are, we must know what happens psychologically to fully be able to understand food addiction and be able to stop it. When humans eats high carbohydrate dense foods that generally tend to taste better, they “trigger feel-good brain chemicals such as dopamine” (Gearhardt and Corbin 166). After people feel pleasure that is induced by an increase in dopamine in the brain’s reward pathway “they quickly feel the need to eat again” (Gearhardt and Corbin 167). By eating highly palliative (likable) foods that cause a rewarding reaction, they can cause the reward signals to “override other signals of fullness and satisfaction” (Gearhardt and Corbin 167). This is where an addiction to food can start, and where we are able to identify the three stages, because the body cannot tell when it is hungry or not and eats food based off of wants and craves. After a long period of time, the amount of food consumed may not form that same rewarding reaction as it did before. This can cause a tolerance to food which happens “when an individual needs to consume larger amounts to receive the desired effects” (Gearhardt and Corbin 167). Tolerance soon forces a loss of control over an addiction which “is defined by the frequent consumption of a substance in greater amounts or over longer periods of time than was initially needed” (Gearhardt and Corbin 168). Usually patients with a food addiction do not realize that they are suffering from a loss of control because they are aware that their over consumption is not good for them, but they are suppressing the matter at hand and become unable to recognize the effects. However, by suppressing the matter, a patient with substance dependency can “typically continue use in the face of legal, financial, interpersonal, and health problems” (Gearhardt and Corbin 169). In the case of food addiction, people continue use disregarding the health problems that it can, and will, cause. All of these are characteristics of the first stage, binge/intoxication. The next stage happens when food addicts are running low or craving food and go into withdrawal which “is defined as the development of physiological or cognitive symptoms in response to periods of abstinence of reduced consumption of a substance” (Gearhardt and Corbin 167). If people who are deciding to change their addictive habits are able to overcome the withdrawal stage, this may not mean that they have recovered. The number one characteristic among all addicts is the “high rates of chronic relapse in substance dependence” (Gearhardt and Corbin 169). The last stage of the addiction cycle, preoccupation/anticipation, is defined in the next section, “How It Happens”, which is needed to know to be able to overcome your food addiction.