TY  - JOUR
AB  - The concept of food addiction has attracted a growing interest in the media and has stimulated many debates in the scientific community. The aim of this article is to analyze the validity and clinical utility of the food addiction model applied to eating disorders and obesity, in particular. Although there are some similarities between the binge-eating episodes of reported by people with eating disorders and substance use disorder, there are fundamental differences between the two disorders concerning the psychopathology, epidemiology and risk factors. In people with obesity, although some studies have reported common brain reward processes between the intake of certain foods and the use of addictive substances, this does not mean that a food capable of activating the reward system can be classified as an addictive. Indeed, the overeating reported by some people with obesity may be explained through the acquisition of habits determined by the activation of normal hedonic processes (not pathological), in a food environment that is dense of energy and culturally permissive. Furthermore, there are important differences between obesity and substance use disorder, such as the time course of relapse and treatment outcomes. Finally, the adoption of a treatment based on the model of food addiction in eating disorders and obesity is a source of concern because it could move away the people suffering from these disorders from therapies of proven efficacy.
AU  - Dalle Grave, Riccardo
DA  - 2019/04/20
DO  - 10.32044/ijedo.2019.05
KW  - Food addiction
Obesity
Eating disorders
Treatment
Cognitive behavior therapy
M3  - Original article
PY  - 2019
SN  - 2612-6354
SP  - 34-41
ST  - Food addiction: un concetto di scarsa validità e utilità clinica
T2  - IJEDO
TI  - Food addiction: un concetto di scarsa validità e utilità clinica
UR  - https://www.doi.org/10.32044/ijedo.2019.05
VL  - 1
ID  - 2439
ER  -