THE ESSENTIAL
- People with a food addiction are also more likely to drink alcohol, smoke cannabis and cigarettes.
- Excessive use of addictive substances is among the leading preventable causes of death globally.
Addicted to fries, ice cream and industrial pizzas? The fault might lie with your parents, especially if they drink alcohol. Indeed, researchers at the University of Michigan have examined how parents’ drinking habits specifically influence their children’s consumption of processed foods. And according to their results published in the journal Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, junk food addiction was indeed associated with parental alcohol use disorders.
357 participants
To conduct their work, they studied the responses of a sample of 357 American adults, aged around 40, to the food addiction test “La Yale Food Addiction Scale“(YFAS). It is to date the only validated self-questionnaire to measure this addiction. According to the authors, ultra-processed foods contain extremely high levels of refined carbohydrates and fats which can trigger an “dependency response“in some people.
One in five adults is addicted to junk food
In total, up to one in five people have a clinically significant addiction to ultra-processed foods, characterized by an inability to control their food intake, intense cravings and great difficulty in reducing their intake despite all the negative consequences.
“People with a family history of addiction are more likely to develop a problematic relationship with ultra-processed foods, which is a real challenge in a food environment where these foods are cheap, accessible and heavily marketed.“Said Lindzey Hoover, lead author of the study and a graduate student in psychology at the University of Victoria, in a statement from the university.
According to previous research, having a parent who suffered from an alcohol use disorder is already an important risk factor for addiction in children in general.
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