Junk Food Addiction

“When I want something good to eat, I’ll have it and then I’ll think back on what I did and I’ll say, I shouldn’t have done that, but then it’ll be too late.”

But it's tough, especially for a teenager in the suburbs. In a three kilometre radius around Jonathan's home in Mississauga, Ontario, we counted 92 fast food outlets. Tempting and easy to get your fast food fix.

The dopamine connection

On Long Island, New York, psychiatrist Dr. Nora Volkow scanned the brains of several of her patients — all big overeaters. She wanted to try and figure out why they eat so much.

Volkow suspected addiction played a part. She found the brains of the obese look a lot like the brains of drug addicts. It all has to do with dopamine — a brain chemical that controls pleasure.

“The images show the concentration of dopamine receptors…and you see by comparing these images that the people who have normal weights have much more receptors here…than the people who are obese.”

“It is compulsion to consume the food, and it creates a lot of anxiety. They don’t take it if they don’t eat, so it’s very similar to what you see in drug addiction.”

Volkow points out that a major difference with drug addiction is that you can completely separate yourself from the drug. In obesity, you can't because you need food to survive.

It doesn’t help that we’re constantly bombarded with messages about food — usually fast food — everywhere we turn. Many of those ads are aimed at the most susceptible — the young, like Jonathan Loza.

Loza's been attending an obesity clinic for the past six months. His pediatrician — Dr. Glenn Berall — is seeing a lot more kids like Jonathan, who now has a problem with his liver.

"We’re seeing more diabetes…we’re seeing high cholesterol, a number of things that don’t bode well for the future health of our children. When I was a resident…we never saw that.”

'Not sold on addiction argument'

Berall is not sold on the addiction argument. But he does want something done to cut down all the junk food and step up our activity levels.

“I think government has a responsibility here. Government’s going to have to pick up the tab of the consequences of not doing something. And therefore, I think government might want to invest the money in preventing that excess tab, which is coming.”

In Ottawa, the feds aren’t familiar with the addiction research, either. Instead, they are taking the traditional route when it comes to battling obesity.

Health Canada's Mary Bush says the first step is to understand the issue.

"Education alone won’t do this. What we need is to collectively work together and in an inter-sectoral, multi-level way, address the issues and find solutions."

Bush adds Canada's waistline didn't collectively expand overnight — so it will take some time to turn back the clock on obesity.

Back at the food court, it all comes down to people making choices. Or are the scientists right — that we don’t have as much choice as we like to think?

“The food industry, of course, wants to sell, so they optimize the taste and composition of food, so to maximize the likelihood that will generate the compulsive urge to eat more. And we know that because we’ve all had it,” Long Island psychiatrist Dr. Nora Volkow says.