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Advocating widespread acceptance of food addiction as a disease of substance abuse.
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Increasing the availability of effective, abstinence-based solutions.
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Helping to identify and expand knowledge about food addiction.
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Providing professional and public education about food addiction as a treatable chemical dependency to physicians, dietitians, therapists, counselors and allied health professionals, internationally.
FOR SOMEONE WITH UNTREATED FOOD ADDICTION, LIFE IS FILLED WITH QUESTIONS:
Why can’t I stop eating?
Why can’t I lose weight?
Why do I feel so driven to eat things I don’t even want?
How can I find someone to help me?
Food addiction is a physical and emotional reaction to certain food substances, similar to drug and alcohol addiction. When food addicts eat foods they are physically addicted to, a biochemical process is triggered in their bodies causing them to crave more and more of this food. No amount of dieting or willpower can alleviate these cravings.
In order to answer these questions and find recovery, food addicts need the help of trained professionals and peer-support groups so they can learn ways to put their disease of food addiction into remission.
If you are a food addict, please click on the “For Food Addicts” pulldown menu. Professionals interested in more information about food addiction to help your clients, please click on the “For Professionals” pulldown menu.
Food addicts are not weak or lacking willpower. Instead, there is a physiological process taking place within their bodies that has nothing to do with willpower. In the same way that someone who has a cold cannot simply will that cold to go away, a food addict is not able to think themselves thin or stop themselves from craving certain foods.
In the same way that alcoholics and drug addicts must abstain from their addictive behaviors and substances, food addicts need to discover and abstain from the foods that cause a biochemical reaction in their brains.
No matter which group you fit into, please know that recovery from food addiction is possible and learning more about this deadly disease is the first step to changing lives. The Food Addiction Institute is can help.
For Professionals
The Food Addiction Institute (FAI), founded in 2005, is an independent, non-profit organization whose mission is to support the healing of all food addicts.
