Woeful misunderstanding of food, addiction

Over at medicaldaily.com, the writer Evan Winchester shows severe gaps in his understanding of the food experience of tens of millions of Americans in his April 22 piece, "Is Food Addiction a Real Eating Disorder?"

I was moved by his piece to offer three points of rebuttal, which I then decided to expand on and share beyond just the readers of his post. I hope the context will be sufficient...

* No withdrawal? Are you kidding me? Try cutting out all sugar and flour for 30 days. Cold turkey. And not just cutting out sugar in your coffee, but reading labels: 80 percent of consumer-food products have added sugar. And tell me if you don’t have physical reactions to the change. Not as intense a physical reaction as with cocaine or heroin, but we're not talking about effect, not intensity of effect.

* No increase in tolerance? Any binge eater will tell you that over time, they needed more food to gain the same effect. Not everyone, but do those who experience that just not exist, or not count?

* No, it is not semantics. Compulsive eating is a psychological phenomenon. Food addiction is a biochemical phenomenon. That they are the same thing is a key misconception. You can practice A without B, B without A, or you can practice both. Some overeaters practice neither.

I was able to see a collection of his posts on the site — seven in the past week, at least. But I wasn’t able to find anything like a CV. Maybe he’s very clever, very skilled, very knowledgeable. But based on this post, maybe not.

 


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