Food Obsession Research Articles

A Systematic Review of Clinical Psychophysiology of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders: Does the Obsession with Diet Also Alter the Autonomic Imbalance of Orthorexic Patients?

(1) Background: A new mental illness is attracting the attention of researchers and mental health professionals. Orthorexia nervosa (ON) is a possible new mental disorder, the main symptom of which is an obsessive and insecure focus on healthy foods and consequent compulsive behaviors. There is a common consensus among researchers that ON is considered partly overlapping with obsessive-compulsive disorders (OCDs). (2) Methods: MEDLINE and Scopus were searched for articles published in the last 10 years regarding the psychophysiological aspects of OCD and ON. Eight studies met the eligibility criteria. The inclusion criteria encompassed adults diagnosed with OCD and/or ON. However, only studies involving OCD patients were found. (3) Results: Some research groups have shown that OCD disorders can be considered among anxiety disorders because they are characterized by anxious hyper activation. Other research, however, has shown profiles characterized by low psychophysiological reactivity to stressful stimuli. Despite this, there seems to be a consensus on the poor inhibition abilities, even when activation is low, and the dissociation between cognitive and psychophysiological activation emerged. (4) Conclusions: However discordant, some points seem to bring the researchers to agreement. In fact, there is consensus on conducting a multidimensional assessment that can measure all of the aspects of suffering (cognition, emotion, and behavior) and highlight the poor body-mind integration. This clinical approach would make it possible to propose interventions aimed at treating some mental illnesses such as food obsession that can paradoxically impair the psychophysical balance. Nevertheless, the applied systematizing approach to existing studies on ON is very much needed for better understanding of the psychophysical nature of this new mental illness and its implications for prevention and treatment.

Effect of nutritional status on cognitive function in adolescents

Background: Adolescents are considered to be the healthiest group among the entire population. However, due to fast food obsession, the nutritional habits of adolescent generation are changing and are unable to meet the increased nutrient requirement per unit body weight. Thus, adolescents are facing weight problems, that is, overweight/normal weight/underweight, but undernourished. Aims and Objectives: The aims of the study were (1) to assess the nutritional status using anthropometric measurements in the adolescents and (2) to correlate the anthropometric measurements with their cognitive performance. Materials and Methods: A total of 281 adolescents, height (cm), weight (Kg), and waist circumference (cm) were measured. Using these parameters, the body mass index (BMI) and waist-to-height ratio (WTHR) were calculated. Cognitive function test was carried out using Raven’s Progressive Matrices (RPM). Statistical analysis was done using Pearson correlation coefficient and Fisher’s exact type of Chi-square. Results: The gender and age distribution in the study population were not statistically significant. Gender-wise distribution of the WTHR, the BMI, and the standard RPM of the study population was statistically significant. Relation between BMI, WTHR, and RPM percentiles was not statistically significant, but regardless of the weight status, the scores were between the 25th and 50th percentile. Conclusion: With fast changing food habits among the adolescents, along with students, parents and teachers must also be made aware of importance of food containing all essential nutrients in optimum amounts for better cognitive functioning of the adolescent brain, and not merely focus on physically visible parameters such as weight and height.

Food Porn in Titus Andronicus, Chocolat and I Served the King of England (Obsluhoval jsem anglického krále)

Abstract This essay studies scenes that focus on food and eating in the films Chocolat (2000) and I Served the King of England (Obsluhoval jsem anglického krále, 2006). To assess whether or not they constitute food porn we compare and contrast such scenes with the description of an unwholesome recipe for cannibalistic eating in Titus Andronicus, which anticipates our contemporary food obsession. At its most basic (and controversial), food porn names the alluring visualisation of certain foodstuffs, which renders food the object of erotically tinged desire. Serving different purposes in the two films, such eroticisation of food can be more than self-referential insofar as it indicates human interactions framed as power relations. Showing chocolate making and eating, in Chocolat, actually visualises a woman’s exertion of power over the women and their husbands in a bigoted French village in 1959, intended to awaken the people’s benumbed desire. Not food proper is the object of desire in the Czech film, but the young woman served up as ocular side dish to the moguls dining in a stylish Prague restaurant before the outburst of WWII. By contrast, food eroticisation is completely absent in Shakespeare; at stake is a verbal (and implicitly visual) concern with the transformation of flesh and body parts into ingredients for seemingly festive consumption. Visualising food, in Titus, implicitly visualises the reclaim and exertion of power in the fictional Roman polity. In all these cases, the concern with food vectorises power relations and may fluidise gendered hierarchies, an issue which food porn scholarship rarely addresses.

Development and validation of the Premorbid Childhood Traits Questionnaire (PCT-Q) in eating disorders.

Some features of eating disorders (EDs) are often present in childhood before the onset of the ED. We developed a novel questionnaire to retrospectively capture such childhood traits. Focus groups were conducted at the University of California-San Diego, USA, and at the University of Turin, Italy. Three focus groups were conducted at each site, interviewing patients and parents to identify those traits that most commonly characterize childhood of patients with EDs. A preliminary version of the Premorbid Childhood Traits Questionnaire (PCT-Q) derived from these focus groups was then administered to 94 consecutive inpatients with an ED and to 286 healthy controls (HCs) at the Turin site. Also, 208 participants' parents were enrolled as well; in fact, the PCT-Q was developed with both a proband and an informant version. A 37-item final version of the PCT-Q was generated. Reliability analyses suggested acceptability for harm avoidance (HA), social phobia, alexithymia, interoceptive awareness (IA), and food obsessions. Inter-rater reliability ranged from fair to moderate. ED sufferers scored significantly higher than HCs on HA, social phobia, alexithymia, IA, and food obsessions. These findings support the possibility that premorbid traits contribute to a risk to develop an ED in some individuals. III: case-control analytic study.

Heathen Talk: Psychoanalytic Considerations of Eating Disorders and the Dissociated Self

ABSTRACTAn intermix of direct behavioral intervention incorporated in a psychoanalytically oriented stance is needed to treat the eating-disordered patient. Symptomatic behaviors too quickly get entrenched and need to be urgently addressed. Particularly with the eating-disordered teen, treatment goals must include immediate intervention with eating behaviors while, at the same time, attempting to reach the disowned part of the patient, often hidden behind bingeing, purging, or other disordered behaviors. This work involves an expansion of the unwitting but often hierarchical structure of contemporary treatment. Understanding dissociation as an interpersonal enactment as opposed to developmental impairment allows patient and therapist to work in tandem to search for the parts of the patient hidden behind food and weight obsessions. The goal is not merely symptom reduction but also to find the part of the patient who is reluctant to enter the room.

Orthorexia Nervosa- a Review

Orthorexia nervosa is characterized by an obsession with avoiding foods perceived to be unhealthy. It seems to be more common in men than in women and in those with a lower level of education. It may be a food-centered manifestation of obsessive compulsive disorder. Orthorexia is an emotionally disturbed, self-punishing relationship with food that involves a progressively shrinking universe of foods deemed acceptable. The more restrictive the diet, the more likely it is to set off the psychological factors that lead to an eating disorder. Raw foods veganism is on the other extreme, and has a fairly high orthorexic potential. Orthorexia sufferers often display signs and symptoms of anxiety disorders that frequently co-occur with anorexia nervosa or other eating disorders. An orthorexic may avoid numerous foods, including those made with artificial colors, pesticides, fat, sugar, salt, animal or dairy products. A woman with orthorexia may find that her food obsessions begin to hinder everyday activities. Orthroxia can put a strain on relationships with family and friends, as relationships become less important than holding to dietary patterns. Maintaining an obsession with health food may cause a restriction of calories merely because available food isn't considered to be good enough. Orthorexia is a discrete diagnosis like anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa. Obsession with weight is one of the primary signs of anorexia, bulimia, and other eating disorders, but is not a symptom of orthorexia. orthorexia is a medical disease that can result in irreversible health complications, including death.

Our food and drink obsession.

Our food and drink obsession.

Interpretation of food risks by mothers of kindergarten children in St. Petersburg, Russia, and their strategies of risk handling

This study discusses different types of food risks and different strategies of risk handling as conceived by mothers of kindergarten children in Russia. The research includes an analysis of Internet forum discussions and semi-structured interviews; it mainly used data from well-educated, middle-class, and married women from St. Petersburg and Moscow. Three groups of food risks have derived from the analysis of the empirical data: risks stemmed from the non-observance of sanitary and other rules, risks from products coveted by children, and “invisible” risks. The second group of risks, the food obsessions of the children, was the one which the mothers were mainly concerned with and most actively tried to manage. Consequently, a broad range of their strategies became apparent, varying from denial and patience to the shaping of collective action groups. The strategies are formulated into three large groups: resistance, non-resistance, and adaptation. Generally mothers mainly dealt with the second group of food risks and adaptation was the preferred strategy.

Managing Prader–Willi syndrome in families: An embodied exploration

This paper aims to explore the management of a rare chromosome disorder, Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS), within families. It is particularly concerned with developing an understanding of the management of diet and other everyday practices affecting the body. People with PWS tend to experience poor muscle tone combined with food obsession. The level of control over diet needed to prevent obesity and related health complications is often lacking as individuals also experience various forms of learning disability, autistic spectrum disorders and behavioural problems. The findings are based on data from twenty qualitative case studies of English families with a young person with PWS. Analysis of management strategies highlights the centrality of embodied agency in shaping everyday practices and interactions. The significance and influence of biology within this process is particularly evident, as people with the genetic condition PWS experience embodiment and emotion in distinct ways and differently from non-PWS family members in the research sample. Focusing on the multidimensional nature of processes surrounding body management, the paper highlights three key management practices and explores how these practices are influenced by people with PWS and interpreted by family members. Three key practices are identified as: restricting access to food, keeping occupied, and use of routine. The study represents the first UK empirical sociological study of PWS and primarily adds an insight of family management of PWS to a medically dominated literature around the disorder. The findings can sensitise health and social care professionals to some potential issues for families managing PWS, and guide and develop appropriate interventions to support young people with PWS and their carers.

The transition between the phenotypes of Prader–Willi syndrome during infancy and early childhood

In the half-century since the description of Prader–Willi syndrome (PWS) there has been a considerable body of work devoted to delineation of the genetic mechanisms behind the development of PWS, and to improving our understanding of the physical manifestations, and behavioural and cognitive effects of the disorder. Generally, infants with PWS cannot suck properly and many are gavage-fed. They often fail to thrive, although Eiholzer et al. reported that even underweight infants with PWS have abnormally high body-fat measures. An interesting facet of PWS is hyperphagia which is almost universal after the age of 3 years. Earlier thought to be a manifestation of extreme hunger, hyperphagia in PWS is now considered to reflect a disruption of the normal satiety signal. In fact, some researchers have suggested that PWS is a starvation syndrome, whereby the body responds to the lack of satiety signal as if starving, with the result that the person continues to eat whenever food is available. Treatment with growth hormone has been shown to improve linear growth and to decrease fat-mass to muscle-mass ratios, but it appears to have little, if any, effect on the abnormal eating behaviours of people with PWS. There has been little research into the transition period between the early childhood phenotype of failure to thrive and the older, hyperphagic phenotype. A study by Butler et al. sheds light on this under-investigated stage of the disorder. Overall, they found considerable variation in the age at which children first exhibited an increased interest in food, and significantly fewer children displayed the full food obsession pattern of behaviour than would be expected from other reports. However, body mass index (BMI) standard deviation scores tended to increase around 30 months of age, before any notable increase in the characteristic eating behaviour as reported by many parents, thus supporting the suggestion that there are in fact three stages involved in the development of PWS: failure to thrive in infancy, increased BMI or obesity in early childhood, and hyperphagia leading to greater obesity in later childhood and adulthood. One limitation faced by Butler et al. was that just over one-third of participants had received growth hormone therapy for varying lengths of time, with insufficient numbers to attain statistical significance. A larger-scale longitudinal study could usefully explore the use of growth hormone in infancy and clarify the apparent delay in the transition between phenotypic stages resulting from the treatment. An important advance is the development of an Eating Code specifically for use with younger age groups. A Food-Related Problems Questionnaire already exists for older people with PWS, and there appear to be many similarities between the two instruments. However, the inclusion of questions relating to the need for and use of food control measures to determine the Eating Codes appears to be unique to this study and promises to be a

Exacerbation of Psychosis: A Case of Possible Varenicline-Mediated Effects in an Intellectually Disabled Adult

Varenicline represents a new agent available to aid smoking cessation. A twenty-five year old, white male with diagnoses of Psychosis Not Otherwise Specified, Antisocial Personality Disorder, nicotine dependence, and mild mental retardation with food obsession, paranoia, and a seizure disorder, was well controlled with a regimen of ziprasidone and haloperidol for paranoia and psychosis, escitalopram for obsessiveness, and carbamazepine for seizures. He became increasingly paranoid following the addition of varenicline for smoking cessation. An increase in ziprasidone resolved paranoid symptoms. Concurrent use of ziprasidone, haloperidol and carbamazepine may have provided more psychiatric stability in this patient. There may exist a subset of patients for whom use of varenicline may increase the risk of breakthrough psychosis or mania. This case report was accepted for a poster presentation at the 2008 College of Psychiatric & Neurologic Pharmacists Annual Meeting, April 13-16, 2008, Scottsdale, AZ.

Food obsession leads us inevitably to overindulgence

Food obsession leads us inevitably to overindulgence

The psychotherapy of a male anorectic

The author describes the way in which a male anorexic patient came to be understood in once‐weekly psychotherapy. The findings are similar to recent psychoanalytic ones about female anorectics, but add that he was preoccupied with display and that there was an erotised transference in the oral mode. Of two major themes, the first was a food obsession; the food was felt concretely to be the mother as in a symbolic equation, and the conflict about eating represented a wish for and fear of fusion with her. The second major theme concerned exhibition; the self, as seen in two screen memories, was felt to be uncomfortably on show. Meanwhile the patient was preoccupied with a self‐displaying maternal object, which was prominent in the transference. This perception of the object served as a defence against envy, although the defensive aspect may have been added to by an actual experience of a mother who functioned operatively, giving food rather than loving attention. The patient employed primary‐process thinking defensively against selfobject differentiation, which would have excited further awareness both of envy and of the real deficiencies of his primary objects. The author raises the possibility that the anorexia functioned as a perversion, binding and organising the core complex about fusion.

“Ox Hunger”: Psychoanalytic Explorations of Bulimia Nervosa

Bulimia, a term derived from Greek words meaning “ox” and “hunger,” is a food obsession characterized by repeated overeating binges followed by purges of forced vomiting, prolonged fasting, or abuse of laxatives, enemas, diuretics and amphetamines. It provides temporary relief to emotional pain. If untreated, bulimia causes serious medical and dental problems. In this paper, I first present an overview of the historical development of bulimia nervosa as a clinical entity and then explore the syndrome from a psychoanalytic perspective, focusing on the Freudian drive-conflict model, the pathology of early object relations, and attachment theory. A case is presented and treatment implications are discussed.

Using the Health Belief Model for Bulimia Prevention

The author discusses application of the Health Belief Model to bulimia prevention (reduction of bulimic-like behaviors of food obsessions, bingeing, and various forms of purging). She considers the individual's beliefs about bulimia and bulimic-like behaviors as a means of predicting the likelihood of behavior change to prevent clinically diagnosable bulimia, includes a description of each Health Belief Model component, and offers implications for further research.

Relation of family factor to treatment outcome for bulimic patients.

The psychotherapy of 25 normal weight bulimic adolescent and late adolescent women (age 15-32 years, mean = 21 years), was reviewed to evaluate developmental and diagnostic precursors and the outcome of psychoanalytically oriented long-term therapy (mean = 33 sessions). Psychotherapy outcome was scored in these categories: bingeing and purging; food obsession; school/work satisfaction; equilibration with family of origin, and achievement of heterosexual closeness. On factor analysis, all factors loaded highly and a global outcome score was derived which was used as the dependent variable in a step-wise regression analysis with 18 family factors as independent variables. To identify family patterns that predicted degree of improvement, a multiple regression analysis was performed. Results indicated that family variables associated with maternal warmth explained an appreciable proportion of the variance in outcome. Such a finding is consistent with the formulation that patients with benign archaic maternal representations were better able than their counterparts with less benign maternal images to form a positive transference and better working alliance with the (female) therapist.

How I Manage Athletes' Food Obsessions

In brief: By following these guidelines, physicians can effectively advise weight-and food-obsessed athletes how to stabilize their eating habits into an ordered routine. The physician, preferably ...

Recovering from foodaholism

Abstract This article describes the pathology and an approach to treatment of food obsession, addiction, and abuse.

Correlates of obesity.

Designed to create composites of eating behavior questionnaire items and determine their relationship to an obesity index within three subsamples of participants in three Navy-sponsored weight-reduction programs (N = 1,878). After item and scale analyses were performed on questionnaire items that pertained to eating behaviors, history of weight problems, activities, and feelings about food and dieting, scores for the resultant composites were computed for individuals within the three subsamples. Results of multiple-regression analyses indicated that the strongest correlates of obesity within each subsample were the Overweight History, Food Obsession, and Activities composites; the multiple R was .49 for Marine recruits, .46 for the other male subsample, and .32 for women. The Emotional Eater composite was included in the multiple regression for the women's subsample. Personality characteristics also were found to be associated with the obesity index in the men's and women's subsamples. Future studies will examine the value of these variables as predictors of weight loss and maintenance of weight loss.