Study Shows One In Eight Adults Over 50 Have Food Addiction

A recent study indicates that one in eight adults over 50 has a form of food addiction to salty snacks.

Local Psychologist Derrick Edwards said that is a result of how certain foods affect your brain. He said, in the same way, an illicit drug might send a dopamine hit to your brain, food can do the same.

“We’re using something to change maybe the way we see ourselves or our situation and food really fits in with really nicely fits in with this type of definition,” Edwards said. “So when this relationship with food becomes overly pathological where we are using it to modulate our emotions, we can certainly slip into that realm of addiction-type language.”

Edwards said this also comes as a result of how access to foods has changed in this age group’s lifetime. He said it is not hard to find some type of food relatively easily and relatively delicious, such as fast food.

In addition, Edwards said our bodies are designed to find these very substances. He said our bodies cannot live without some sort of fat, some sort of salt and some sort of carbohydrate.

“So when we find these sources of food we get a dopamine hit, in the same way, we would if we went skydiving or if we took an illicit drug,” Edwards said. “That dopamine hit would make its way through our brain and that is our brain’s way of saying ‘Remember this, this is good, and we should do this more.’ Now this message is relatively good when left unchecked, but if left unchecked for too long, it could turn into our brain saying ‘I don’t like the way I feel today, remember that thing we had the other day, I liked the way I felt after that.'”

Edwards said like all addictions, the first step to changing the habit is to become self-aware. He said it can be helpful to start a food journal to track what you eat and your moods when you eat to try and find the pattern.