Am I a food addict?
- May 19, 2023
- 2 min read
Updated: Apr 25, 2024
According to a questionnaire developed by researchers at Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Science & Policy, here are some signs that you may be addicted to food:
Keep eating certain foods even if you’re no longer hungry.
Eat to the point of feeling ill.
Worry about not eating certain types of foods or worry about cutting down on certain types of foods.
When certain foods aren’t available, go out of your way to obtain them.
Eat in secret.
Feel guilty after eating particular foods but eat them again soon after.
Make excuses for eating certain foods.
Have problems functioning effectively at work or in social situations because of food and eating.
Other symptoms of food addiction include
obsessive food cravings,
preoccupation with obtaining and consuming food,
continued binge or compulsive eating,
continued attempts to stop overeating and consuming food, followed by a cycle of re-engaging in these destructive behaviors, even amidst undesired consequences
The Yale Food Addiction Scale is a questionnaire developed by Yale University's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity to identify people most likely to have an addiction to high-fat and/or high-sugar foods. The questions are based on symptoms for substance dependence as stated in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV-R and operationalized in the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM Disorders.
The Yale Food Addiction Scale identifies the severity of food addiction based on the 11 criteria substance use disorder. It does not provide a diagnosis nor does it identify the stage of food addiction progression or comorbidity.
The New York Times published a short version of the first Yale Food Addiction Scale over 10 years ago. It has since been updated to the Yale Food Addiction Scale 2.0 with 35 questions, and an additional Children's version. There are 7 questions in the example below so you could take the quiz - scroll through and click answers to see the result.
Resource
Penzenstadler, L., Soares, C., Karila, L., & Khazaal, Y. (2019). Systematic Review of Food Addiction as Measured with the Yale Food Addiction Scale: Implications for the Food Addiction Construct. Current neuropharmacology, 17(6), 526–538. https://doi.org/10.2174/1570159X16666181108093520
Gearhardt, A. N., Corbin, W. R., & Brownell, K. D. (2016). Development of the Yale Food Addiction Scale Version 2.0. Psychology of addictive behaviors : journal of the Society of Psychologists in Addictive Behaviors, 30(1), 113–121. https://doi.org/10.1037/adb0000136
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