Dr Kirrilly Pursey - Food Addictions

This week on wellbeing we are talking with Dr Kirrilly Pursey from the University of Newcastle about food addiction. The concept of food addiction is still a field in development as it has not been yet classified as an official medical condition. Despite this, evidence is growing in supporting that this proposed condition is a very real occurrence. Dr Pursey is an expert in this emerging field having done her PhD on attitudes and behaviours around food using the Yale Food Addiction Scale and the Australian Eating Survey. Now as a lecturer and researcher at the University of Newcastle she is working towards food addiction becoming medically definable so that treating the condition can be made better.

In this episode, Dr Pursey talks about the symptoms of food addiction, the impacts it has on peoples lives, the brain pathways affected by food addiction, how food manufacturers could possibly be causing food addictions, the evidence in support of food addiction being a stand-alone condition, the differences between food addiction and binge eating disorder, the connection between food addiction rates and rising obesity rates, and the support available to those going through a food addiction. 

"As we see in another types of addictions, say for example illicit drugs, what we see is an dopamine release so that the feel good chemical in the brain and we really want that when we are eating food as it really is a physiological mechanism to drive us to eat food but what has happened with our food nowadays that food manufacturers have really capitalised on this." - Dr. Kirrilly Pursey on this episode of Wellbeing

Tune in next week when we talk with Dr Michelle Brown about Ovarian Cancer

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