Essay About Food Addiction

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Recommended: Obesity brief note

Food addiction: A brief overview A current and major growing threat to the worldwide public health is the obesity epidemic. One proposal for certain types of obesity, such as those associated with binge eating disorder is that the individual suffers from a food addiction. A food addiction can be described as compulsive overeating by an individual and their lack of control of their food intake. The purpose of this paper is to describe the neurobiological bases of food addiction and how this relates to the neurobehavioural aspect of overeating and obesity. According to reports from the Centers for Disease Control, during the past thirty years the average rate of obesity in the US adult population has risen from under 20% to 35.7%. Secondly, during the same period, childhood obesity has tripled to a rate of 17%. It has been currently found that in more than a third of all children and adolescents are now considered to be overweight or obese. These shocking statistics show that a high prevalence of obesity appears to have increased significantly in the United States. It also continues to be a major public health concern, the total medical costs of obesity within the United States were estimated at $147 billion in 2008, and it is believed to continue to increase with the rising cost of health care. Secondly, obesity is also now considered to have become a global phenomenon. The World Health Organization has stated that obesity is responsible for approximately 8% of health costs in Europe and approximately over 10% of total deaths. The onset of obesity is believed to stem from multiple causes, both physiological and environmental. An example of a cause of obesity might include the lack of exercise, however in this review I will foc... ... middle of paper ... ...vation or deep brain stimulation of the rat subthalamic nucleus, a separate node within basal ganglia motivational circuitry, reduces motivation for cocaine while leaving food motivation relatively intact Conclusion Since that eating food is necessary for survival and that it is believed that reward circuit is assumed to be evolved in influencing this survival behavior. One must look at the underlying neural circuitry in order to undersand why individuals engage in overeating. It seems that the accusatory nature of assuming an individual is obese due to palatable and unhealthy foods isn’t always the main concern. As stated in the essay it would make more sense of asking why individuals engage in overeating behaviours to the point that neural circuitry is altered in a manner which will allow the individual to be engaged in the behavior for extended periods of time.

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