Food Addiction Therapy
If you feel like food has taken control of your life, you’re not alone. While food can be a healthy source of comfort and joy for some, it becomes a complicated relationship that feels impossible to manage for many people. Overeating, compulsive eating, and emotional bingeing can all bring feelings of frustration, self-doubt, guilt, or even shame, making it even harder to take the first step toward change. It doesn’t have to be this way though, and with the right support, it’s possible to heal and regain control of your eating habits.
What is Food Addiction?
Food addiction is a term that is used to describe eating behaviors that fall into the same criteria as those of other substance use disorders (SUDs). While not a formally recognized disorder in the DSM-V, food addiction is the inability to control eating behaviors, even when these behaviors have a negative impact on physical health, emotional well-being, or daily life. It involves a cycle of cravings, overeating, and distress, and engages the brain’s reward system in ways similar to alcoholism or drug addiction. People experiencing food addiction may feel powerless in their eating habits. Signs of food addiction can include:
Eating large amounts of food in a short time, even when you’re not hungry.
Intense cravings for specific foods (particularly those high in sugar, fat, or salt).
Inability to control your eating habits.
Continued overeating despite negative physical or emotional consequences.
Withdrawal-like symptoms such as irritability, fatigue, or mood swings when certain you avoid certain foods.
Unsuccessful attempts to control or change your eating behaviors.
When is it a Problem?
Along with the similarities to SUDs, food addiction also has overlapping symptoms with binge-eating disorder, such as eating large amounts of food in short periods well past the point of being full and unsuccessful attempts to control or change the behavior despite recognizing negative effects that it is having on health and well-being. Because of the similarities, many people mistakenly use these two terms interchangeably. Signs of binge-eating disorder can include:
- Eating significantly more food in a short period than what most people would eat, at least one time per week.
- Feeling a lack of control over how much you’re eating during these episodes.
- Eating to the point of being uncomfortably full.
- Eating large amounts of food even when you’re not hungry.
- Eating alone due to embarrassment surrounding how much you are eating.
- Experiencing guilt, shame, sadness, or disgust after binge-eating episodes.
Whether you’re struggling with food addiction or binge-eating disorder, or just an unhealthy relationship with food, therapy can provide the support you need to break free from destructive eating behaviors, and develop a healthier relationship with food.
How Mental Bloom Helps
At Mental Bloom Therapy, we recognize the impact an unhealthy relationship with food can have on your life. We approach your struggles with food in a way that focuses on healing the whole person, not just the eating habits. In therapy, we take the time to explore the root causes of the challenges you’re facing and work with you to develop a treatment plan that targets both the emotional and behavioral components of your relationship with food. Here’s how we help:
Addressing Unhealthy Patterns
Whether it’s compulsive eating or emotional bingeing, we help you uncover and break the destructive patterns in your relationship with food. Together, we’ll explore the underlying emotional challenges that may contribute to these behaviors.
Identifying Triggers
We work with you to pinpoint the emotional triggers and situations that prompt unhealthy eating patterns. Understanding your triggers allows you to develop healthier coping strategies that don’t rely on food.
Building Healthy Coping Skills
We’ll help you create practical tools and techniques for managing stress, emotional challenges, and cravings, so you can navigate life’s difficulties without using food as an unhealthy coping mechanism.
Changing Negative Thought Patterns
Unhealthy relationships with food are often reinforced by negative thought patterns and distorted beliefs about food, weight, and body image. In therapy, we’ll help you identify and challenge these harmful thoughts and replace them with more positive, realistic beliefs. This process involves healing from body image issues and embracing self-compassion and acceptance
Addressing Co-occurring Issues
Many people struggling with food-related challenges also face co-occurring issues like anxiety, depression, or trauma. Therapy provides a space to address these concerns so they don’t stand in the way of your progress.
Creating a Balanced Relationship with Food
Therapy is not about deprivation or strict dieting, it’s about helping you develop a balanced and mindful approach to eating. We help you rebuild a healthy relationship with food, teaching you how to make food choices that nourish your body and mind without guilt or shame.
Building Support Systems
Having a strong support network is an important component of healing. We’ll help you strengthen your support network, whether that’s family, friends, or peer groups, to provide the encouragement and accountability needed for lasting change.
Fostering Lasting Change
Recovery is a lifelong process, and therapy provides ongoing support to help you maintain your progress. We’ll work together to create long-term strategies for maintaining progress and ensuring that your new relationship with food continues to serve you in a healthy and fulfilling way
Contact Us Today
Breaking free from an unhealthy relationship with food is possible and we are here to offer the support and tools you need to reclaim control of your well-being. Contact us today to schedule a 15-minute consultation and take the first step toward building the life you’ve always wanted. We will tell you more about our approach and answer any additional questions you may have. If at the end of the call you decide to move forward, your first session will be scheduled.