Evidence suggests that palatable foods can promote an addictive process akin to drugs of abuse. To date, research in the field of food addiction has focused largely on binge eating as a symptom of this condition. The present study investigated relationships between food addiction and other patterns of overeating, such as compulsive grazing—a behaviour with high relevance to bariatric surgery outcomes. Adults between the ages of 20 and 50 years (n = 232) were recruited for the study. Participants completed questionnaires to assess various eating behaviours and related personality measures. Regression analysis employed the Yale Food Addiction Scale (YFAS) as the dependent variable. Results indicated that addictive personality traits, reward‐driven eating, and compulsive grazing each contributed unique variance to the YFAS symptom score. These findings provide novel insight into the association between a grazing pattern of overeating and food addiction, and emphasize that similar to traditional addiction disorders such as alcoholism, binge consumption is not the only pattern of compulsive intake.
Background
Healthcare professionals (HCPs) play an important role in discussing weight with children and their parents but report barriers such as lack of training and supports. These barriers are especially prevalent within specialized populations such as children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). To address this, a Knowledge Translation Casebook on positive weight‐related conversations was developed by a research team at a Canadian paediatric hospital. The purpose of the current pre‐implementation pilot study was to explore initial acceptability and adoption of the Casebook into clinical settings.
Methods
An interactive, multimodal education workshop was created to provide HCPs with knowledge and training on how to have positive weight‐related conversations with children and parents. Two workshops were conducted using the same curriculum but delivered either in‐person or online. Participants were drawn from a team of clinicians at a teaching hospital whose care focuses on medication management for clients with ASD and clinicians participating in a distance learning programme on best practice care for clients with ASD. Participants completed a demographic questionnaire, workshop evaluation, and a pre‐workshop and post‐workshop questionnaire. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize demographic, questionnaire, and survey data. Answers to open‐ended questions were analysed using content analysis.
Results
Participants agreed that the workshop gave them a clear understanding of the Casebook's content and helped them easily navigate the Casebook. Based on raw scores, self‐efficacy in having weight‐related conversations seemed to increase from pre‐to post‐workshop, but reported weight‐management clinical practice scores did not change over time. However, the small sample precluded in‐depth statistical analysis.
Conclusions
The Casebook was acceptable and appeared to increase self‐efficacy about having weight‐related conversations with children with ASD and parents. More robust implementation strategies are needed to foster the uptake of best practices in weight‐related conversations into clinical practice.
Purpose of Review
Research on patterns of overconsumption in individuals with food addiction (FA) has focused largely on binge eating. However, compulsive overeating can be varied and dimensional. This review focuses on the similarities between the patterns of consumption in FA and in other clinically established substance-use disorders, such as alcohol and nicotine dependence. It also highlights features that make FA unique to other addiction disorders.
Recent Findings
Overall, there is substantial evidence that binge-like overconsumption is a characteristic of various substance-use and eating disorders. Likewise, it appears that different overeating patterns can reflect addictive-like eating. One pattern may be
compulsive grazing
— defined as the repetitive inability to resist consumption of small amounts of food.
Summary
This review adds to the increasingly compelling picture that FA and binge-eating disorder are unique conditions, and that FA resembles other substance-use disorders. We conclude that a variety of overeating patterns can reflect addictive eating behaviours in vulnerable individuals, one of which may be compulsive grazing.
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