A prison that opens from the inside.

Disordered eating, dieting, and excessive exercise are often categorized as addictions. This notion was brought about around the year 2010, and research of more breadth appeared in 2015. While there are truly a huge number of similarities, marked differences still blur the picture.

For a start, when it comes to substance use or drug addictions, chemical changes are quickly seen in the brain with immediate effects. These immediate effects or “feelings” are what make the drug/substance appealing. And, obviously, the human body doesn’t need alcohol or drugs of any kind to survive.

Food, though, is 100% essential to existence. In itself, even sugar (I’ll get some flack on this), is not addictive. It’s essential. Even pure sugar, at its fundamental composition level, is a complex of carbon molecules the same as other carbohydrates. 

At the core of restrictive eating habits and caloric restriction of any kind (whether through avoidance or through purging behaviors including exercise) is the avoidance of the “substance”. One could argue this that you cannot become addicted to the lack of something. Furthermore, the results are not witnessed immediately, but rather it’s a long end game approach to satisfaction that takes incredible over-the-top dedication and adherence for long amounts of time. It is also said that restricting food in the extreme (anorexia) provides a feeling of control that is “addictive”. Yet I question this being a result rather than an involvement, having struggled myself. Feeling hungry was never a good feeling. Yet I had an uncanny ability to chase delayed gratification and separate from my body’s needs, in pursuit of my end goal. 

Some then counter that binge eating and/or bulimia could therefore qualify more readily as addictive behaviors because they involve the consumption of food (the supposed substance) that provides the “high”. True, for me the endorphins of bingeing and purging were bar none. But that’s where similarities end in my book. A malnourished body, irrespective the size, craves food. The more malnourished and depleted of energy it is, the more the body craves (especially) carbohydrates due to their more rapid glucose release into the kreb cycle to fuel the body’s mitochondria and produce usable energy for the body and brain. A depleted brain constantly seeks rushes of fuel, endorphins, cortisol and adrenaline to stay alert and feel alive. Macronutrient depletion or imbalance can single-handedly lead to cravings and frantic consumption of food. This is how we are made! It’s our body’s safety net of desperation!

So back to our question: is disordered eating an addiction?

From a food-is-essential perspective, an emotional perspective, and the true definition of an addiction, no. And this is why diet recovery and disordered eating cannot be “treated” with abstinence.

What can be equated, though, is the compulsively often found in dieting, excessive exercise, restrictive eating. Compulsivity is defined as a trait in which actions are persistently repeated despite adverse consequences.  Resembling OCD (and in fact co-existing in a truly huge portion of affected individuals), it is the compulsiveness with which one pursues his/her manipulation of food-intake that most accurately reflects any addictive nature of disordered eating.

In a study completed in 2015 (specific to anorexia), eight  main themes emerged from thematic qualitative analysis; compulsivity as central to anorexia, impaired control, escalating compulsions, emotional triggers, negative reactions, detrimental continuation of behavior, functional impairment, and role in recovery. (https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01608/full)

Let me take you now in a different direction for a spell:

In a previous post I spoke about safety. A lot about disordered eating, similar to OCD, anxiety disorders, and other “reactive” responses to internal pain stem from a need for safety within.  Add to this that, in many cases, if a desire to change body shape or weight ever entered the picture, food was consciously deemed a threat to the mission as well. And vise versa, if food consumption creates a desired feeling of safety or internal comfort (in the case of binge eating and occasionally bulimia), it takes on a peace-keeping, stabilizing role.  

External emotional, mental, or physical threat, and/or internally derived threats  (in the case of food/calories/macronutrient groups) whether past, recent, or ongoing, causes a feeling of threat to security.  Acting in a way that calms down the feeling of angst pacifies it… temporarily. 

But it also does two other things:

1) It tells the brain- “You were right- I feel better now. Gosh that must’ve been a really bad thing happening.” 

2) The brain then determines- “What we did worked. Thank you. Let’s do it again next time things don’t feel right.”

Compulsion is born. 

Not an addiction.

Over time a cycle of compulsion develops and entrenches itself, becoming the norm that feels “right”, even if it looks different from the “right” of those around you, or that which your soul cries out for, reminiscing over a long-lost chapter in the past that held peace and balance. 

When it’s time to listen to that small voice deep down luring you back to real safety, it’ll take a willingness to step out into places (especially with food) that don’t feel safe at all, and a decision (followed by learned ability) to quiet a brain that knows only a trained response of alarm. But eventually she calms and learns to freak out over snakes instead of pecans. You learn to seek safety by changing what you can in the immediate world around you and letting go of what you can’t, instead of shape-shifting yourself. 

Breaking out of the compulsion prison is tough, no joke… until you realize that the lock is on the inside, you’ve had the key all along.  Have courage. And if you need a friend to fight off the world of lies and confusion outside of your cell til you can run free on your own, I’m here.

It opens from the inside.