Food addiction and substance addiction in women: Common clinical characteristics
Open accessAbstract
Food addiction is characterized by poorly controlled intake of highly-palatable, calorically-dense, foods. While previous studies indicate that risk factors for food addiction are similar to substance use disorders (SUD), these studies have looked at food addiction and SUD in independent samples, limiting the ability to directly compare food addiction to SUD. The present study was conducted to assess rates of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, childhood and adult trauma exposure, as well as presence and severity of emotion dysregulation, in a sample of women (N = 229) who either meet criteria for no addiction, food addiction only or SUD only. The prevalence of food addiction was 18.3% and the prevalence of SUD was 30.6% in this sample. Women with food addiction and women with SUD endorsed more depression and PTSD symptoms when compared with individuals with no addiction. Individuals with food addiction and SUD had higher total emotion dysregulation scores, specifically with difficulties in goal directed behaviors, non-acceptance of emotional responses, impulse control, limited access to emotion regulation strategies, and lack of emotional clarity, when compared to individuals with no addiction (all p's < 0.05). There were no differences in PTSD and depression symptoms and emotion dysregulation scores between food addiction and SUD groups (all p > 0.05). However, women with SUD endorsed higher levels of total childhood (p < 0.01) and adulthood trauma (p < 0.01) as compared with women with no addiction or food addiction. These results suggest that women with food addiction and those with SUD share similar psychological characteristics and risk factors, with the exception of trauma histories. These findings have implications for the detection of risk for and treatment of these disorders.
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Individuals in early sobriety seek out highly palatable foods.
“Given that highly palatable food can be very rewarding, it is not surprising individuals in early sobriety seek out these foods (159).”
From A Biopsychosocial Overview of the Opioid Crisis: Considering Nutrition and Gastrointestinal Health (2019) · cites this paper as [159]
Highly palatable food can be very rewarding.
“Given that highly palatable food can be very rewarding, it is not surprising individuals in early sobriety seek out these foods (159).”
From A Biopsychosocial Overview of the Opioid Crisis: Considering Nutrition and Gastrointestinal Health (2019) · cites this paper as [159]
Compared to women with no addictions, women with food addiction and with substance use disorder endorsed more depression and PTSD symptoms and had more difficulties with goal-directed behaviors, acceptance of emotions, and impulse control.
“Compared to women with no addictions, women with FA and with SUD endorsed more depression and PTSD symptoms and had more difficulties with goal-directed behaviors, acceptance of emotions, and impulse control [130].”
From Separating the Signal from the Noise: How Psychiatric Diagnoses Can Help Discern Food Addiction from Dietary Restraint (2020) · cites this paper as [130]
Individuals with food addiction have more depressive symptoms than controls.
“Multiple lines of evidence suggest that individuals with FA have more depressive symptoms than controls [60,105,130,150,151,152].”
From Separating the Signal from the Noise: How Psychiatric Diagnoses Can Help Discern Food Addiction from Dietary Restraint (2020) · cites this paper as [130]
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- Authors
- Hardy, R., Fani, N., Jovanovic, T., & Michopoulos, V.
- Affiliations
- Emory University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Michopoulos, Vasiliki
- Venue
- Appetite
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2018-01
- Volume
- 120
- Pages
- 367-373
- ISSN
- 0195-6663 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC5680129
- OpenAlex
- W2760145095
- Cited by
- 104
- References
- 68
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 12 · 2021: 13 · 2020: 52 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 6
- FWCI
- 21.03
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Appetite (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- Emory Medical Care Foundation
- Emory and Grady Memorial Hospital General Clinical Research Center
- NIH National Centers for Research Resources (M01RR00039, M01 RR00039)
- Research and Woodruff Health Sciences IT Division (UL1 TR000424)
- Atlanta Clinical and Translational Science Institute
- Emory University General Clinical Research Center
- Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Research Scholars program
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Eating Disorders and Behaviors
- Health Sciences › Nursing › Nutrition and Dietetics › Nutrition, Health and Food Behavior
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Epidemiology › Substance Abuse Treatment and Outcomes
- Keywords
- food addiction, substance use disorders, women, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, emotional dysregulation, childhood trauma, adult trauma, prevalence, risk factors, impulse control, emotional clarity
- MeSH terms
- Food Addiction, Adolescent, Adult, Aged, Child Abuse, Cross-Sectional Studies, Depression, Emotions, Female, Georgia, Humans, Middle Aged, Socioeconomic Factors, Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic, Health Behavior, Prevalence, Substance-Related Disorders, Young Adult
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