Food addiction!

The Press reports:

Food addiction should be recognised as a medical condition so obese people can get help to quit, the National Addiction Centre director says.

Almost a third of the population could be addicted to food – yet struggling addicts received no support or funding, unlike people at the other end of the spectrum who receive help for eating disorders such as anorexia, Christchurch-based Professor Doug Sellman said.

He will address an Australasian psychiatry conference in Wellington today on research into food addiction.

The symptoms were similar to those in drug and alcohol addicts, he said.

“Like people with methamphetamine, you don’t get the shaking, but it’s the craving, feeling deprived and really needing it. It’s like they need those particular foods as if their lives depended on it.

I’d be careful about those comparisons. One can live very happily without alcohol or drugs. As far as I know, it is difficult to survive without food.

But I have no doubt that this will be used to demand that the Government regulate food, so eventually you can only buy government approved non-branded food in plain brown paper bags.