Eating Disorders, Overeating, and Pathological Attachment to Food: Independent or Addictive Disorders?

The CDC has reported that obesity is second only to tobacco as the leading cause of associative deaths in America. Can both be types of substance abuse?

A decade ago, scientists hypothesized that loss of control over eatingwhich results in obesitymay be a form of addictive behavior. Using direct evidence gathered by the nation’s leading experts, Eating Disorders, Overeating, and Pathological Attachment to Food: Independent or Addictive Disorders? examines the relationship between overeating and addiction. In this text, you’ll find case studies, tables, figures, and analyses supporting the hypothesis that there are important similarities between highly desirable foods and the classic addictive substances.

Researchers have only recently come to a consensus that obesity is a disease, but the debate continues as to whether it is related to depression, personality disorders, or addictions. In Eating Disorders, Overeating, and Pathological Attachment to Food, you will gain new insight on:

• the social and environmental factors related to eating disorders
  
• problem drinking and eating disorders from a gendered perspective in a college student population
  
• possible neural interconnections between eating messengers and targets for drugs of abuse
  
• neuroimaging studies on somatosensory cortex changes and hypothalamus reward responses
  
• weight gain following supervised abstinence from drugs and alcohol

With overeating and obesity on the rise, Eating Disorders, Overeating, and Pathological Attachment to Food offers new hope in the quest to help patients and clients successfully conquer their eating disorders and/or substance addictions without substituting one for another. This book is a step forward for concerted research toward a better understanding of cravings, which can lead to new therapeutic options more suited toward eating disorders and drug addiction.