Finlayson, GS orcid.org/0000-0002-5620-2256 (2017) Food addiction and obesity: unnecessary medicalization of hedonic overeating. Nature Reviews Endocrinology, 13. pp. 493-498. ISSN 1759-5029
Abstract
The concept of addiction is loaded with connotations and often used for its political as much as its medical utility. The scientific case for ‘food addiction’ as a clinical phenotype currently rests on its association with generic diagnostic criteria for substance-related disorders applied to everyday foods and eating-related problems. This has fused the concept of obesity with addiction regardless of whether it fits the definition. The hedonic/reward system can account for ingestion of foods and drugs, confirming that they share neural substrates that differentiate liking and wanting. These are normal processes recruited for natural homeostatic behaviours and can explain the phenomenon of hedonic overeating as a consequence of human motivation pushed to extremes by an obesogenic environment. Food addiction constitutes a medicalization of common eating behaviour, taking on the properties of a disease. Use of this medical language has implications for the way in which society views overeating and obesity.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2017 Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature. This is an author produced version of a paper published in Nature Reviews Endocrinology. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | addiction; obesity; reward |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Medicine and Health (Leeds) > School of Psychology (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 06 Jun 2017 10:32 |
Last Modified: | 26 Nov 2017 01:38 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Nature Publishing Group |
Identification Number: | 10.1038/nrendo.2017.61 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:117264 |