Food addiction, like addiction to drugs or alcohol, often begins as a way to manage stress, turn up the volume on pleasant emotions (like happiness or comfort), or dampen uncomfortable feelings (like anxiety, anger, or sadness).

Health, particularly behavioral health, has become bound up in morality. The term for this is “healthism” based on a philosophy that everyone is responsible for their health but in a way that makes “healthy behaviors” seem to be more morally superior. This is particularly a problem when it comes to body size. There is a feeling that if health is under your control, then that meansyou must be “choosing” to be obese (as defined by body mass index). Often people living in larger bodies, thenare blamed for not fitting into the “healthy ideal.

Deprivation Only Makes Food Cravings Stronger. Have you ever made a New Year’s resolution to stick to your diet and change your lifestyle once and for all? And only weeks or days later, have you broken those resolutions – and maybe felt that you’ve failed yet again? If so, don’t beat yourself up. The problem isn’t that you lack willpower. It’s that dieting simply doesn’t work.