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Separating the signal from the noise: How psychiatric diagnoses can help discern food addiction from dietary restraint
The purpose of this 2020 article was to help clinicians identify the symptoms of food addiction, with the assessment process, case conceptualization, and the implementation of treatment strategies. There are logical steps that physicians can take to contextualize high food addiction scores, even when the use of validated research instruments is not practical. The current literature is lacking a description of a more comprehensive approach to the examination of food addiction. Firstly, dietary restraint should be considered since this can increase addiction-like eating behaviors and may even lead to false positive diagnoses. Moreover, the presence of symptoms of other psychiatric symptoms may guide treatments such as dietary interventions. Some people argue about the value of a food addiction diagnosis among patients with eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa (binge/purge-type), bulimia nervosa, and binge eating disorder. While a proportion of the population believe that the concept of food addiction does more harm than good by encouraging restrictive approaches to eating, others have demonstrated that enhanced knowledge on the food addiction model can reduce stigma associated with obesity. This review aims to inform healthcare professionals on the diagnosis of food addiction, including the need to consider dietary restraint, and the signs of other psychiatric disorders such as substance use disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. [NPID: substance, abuse, addiction, food addiction, addict, anorexia, bulimia, binge eating, eating, obesity, diet, PTSD, stress, ADHD, anxiety, depressive]
Year: 2020
