|
|
 |
|
Viewing report
|
|
|
|
Food Cravings and Addiction Update
Leatherhead Food International, Sep 2001
The recent growth in interest in food addiction and cravings has been fuelled by the press with articles depicting cravings, particularly in pregnancy, as peculiar and unusual urges for strange combinations of foods, or even nonfoods. Other hormonal links to food craving are commonly accepted, such as those associated with the menstrual cycle. Food addiction has also entered mainstream vocabulary, with chocoholism being a universally accepted term denoting a preoccupation with consuming large and regular quantities of chocolate. Addiction to foodstuffs such as alcohol is also widely recognised; however, other conditions such as addiction to chilli burn also exist. The examination of the origins of food cravings involves many disciplines to determine their sociological, psychological and biological explanations. The most ready explanation is that they stem from an innate requirement for a particular nutrient, however, the concept of food cravings is complex, and cannot be unravelled merely by reference to nutritional deficiency.
This book offers an unparalleled insight into food addictions and cravings, with chapters written by the foremost scientists in the field. The book is of interest to professionals in both industry and academia, students from a range of disciplines, clinicians working with patients in the field of food addiction and cravings, the media and consumers interested in the subject.
The book covers the underlying neurochemistry of food reward and desire, the influence of hormonal status on cravings, behavioral explanations of the development of food cravings, and the link between dieting, cravings, food addiction and eating disorders.
The book is edited by Dr Marion Hetherington, an expert in the fields of appetite regulation and eating disorders. She has authored over 50 academic articles and has been involved in UK and US government funded research projects. She came to Dundee University from the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, and before that worked as a postdoctoral fellow with Dr Barbara Rolls at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, having gained her doctorate from Oxford in 1987. She recently left Dundee after 11 years to take up a Chair in the Psychology Department, University of Liverpool.
|
|
|
|
