Low-income women's conceptualizations of food craving and food addiction

Abstract

Food craving and food addiction have been proposed as targets for obesity focused interventions. However, individuals' conceptualizations of these constructs are not well understood and no studies have employed a qualitative approach. Therefore, we sought to understand how women conceptualize food craving and food addiction. Low-income women with preschool-aged children (2-5 years old) participated in either a semi-structured individual interview or focus group in which they were asked about their conceptualization of eating behaviors among adults and children. All responses were audio-recorded and transcribed. Themes were identified using the constant comparative method of qualitative analysis. Identified themes revealed that the women perceived food craving to be common, less severe and to a degree more humorous than food addiction. It was not felt that food cravings were something to be guarded against or resisted. Food addiction was described in a very “matter of fact” manner and was believed to be identifiable through its behavioral features including a compulsive need to have certain foods all the time. A more detailed understanding of how the general population perceives food craving and food addiction may enable more refined measurement of these constructs with questionnaire measures in the future. In addition, interventions may be designed to use the language most consistent with participants' conceptualizations of these constructs.

Eating to live or living to eat? Exploring the causal attributions of self-perceived food addiction

“…By highlighting qualitative differences between the substance dependence criteria and the characterisation of selfperceived food addiction, the current findings help to explain the previously observed discrepancy between the number of people who fulfil the YFAS criteria and those who self-diagnose (Hardman et al, 2015;Meadows & Higgs, 2013). Furthermore, consistent with other recent qualitative research (Malika et al, 2015), our findings indicate that food addiction is defined within the lay public by a set of core behaviours (as opposed to physical symptoms).…”

“…Interestingly, several of our participants perceived food addiction to involve a problem with a specific type of food, and consistent with previous research (Ifland et al, 2009;Malika, Hayman, Miller, Lee, & Lumeng, 2015), these were exclusively high-fat and high-sugar foods such as pizza and chocolate. It has been suggested that an inability to control oneself around specific food types provides evidence for the addictive properties of these foods (Schulte, Avena, & Gearhardt, 2015).…”

“…Further, it should be noted that, while foods reported as problematic generally tend to be high in fat and sugar, this is not always the case. For example, Malika et al (2015) found that people reported an addiction to carrots and hot sauce. Therefore it appears that people's specific 'comfort' or problematic foods are highly idiosyncratic.…”

A qualitative study of overweight and obese Australians' views of food addiction

“…These findings are consistent with those of several quantitative studies of the public acceptance of food addiction, in which participants believed some cases of obesity were a form of addiction with compulsive elements (Lee et al, 2013;Malika, Hayman, Miller, Lee, & Lumeng, 2015).…”

Associations of Food Addiction in a Sample Recruited to Be Nationally Representative of the United States

“…Additionally, it may be that these persons are more sensitive in self‐reporting eating‐related problems, as prior work has also observed that individuals of higher socioeconomic status are more aware of American body ideals and more likely to perceive overweight (Paeratakul, White, Williamson, Ryan, & Bray, ; Wardle et al, ). In contrast, self‐reporting addictive‐like eating behaviour may be more challenging in lower socioeconomic groups, where consumption of highly processed foods may be more frequent due in part to these foods being easily accessible and affordable (Bowman, Gortmaker, Ebbeling, Pereira, & Ludwig, ; Fernandez‐Alvira et al, ; Konttinen, Sarlio‐Lahteenkorva, Silventoinen, Mannisto, & Haukkala, ), and overconsumption of these foods may be viewed as normative (Malika, Hayman Jr., Miller, Lee, & Lumeng, ). This may be comparable to the issues of self‐reporting drinking behaviour within a population where frequent alcohol consumption is normative or socially desirable (e.g., college students) (Baer & Carney, ; Baer, Stacy, & Larimer, ; Del Boca & Darkes, ).…”