Junk food addiction mainly affects women over 50 – breaking latest news

Il junk food crea dependence: and University of Michigan survey on healthy aging showed how the 13% of adults Americans (between 50 and 80 years old) cannot do without processed foods. And the donne I’m in the front row.

The most desired foods and the symptoms

The most desired foods listed in the survey were: sweets (such as ice cream, chocolate, donuts, cookies, cake and candy), starches (such as white bread, pizza, pasta and rice), salty snack (such as chips, pretzels and crackers), foods high in saturated fat (such as steak, bacon, hamburger, cheeseburger), sugary and energy drinks.
The people who responded to the survey showed an intense desire to consume this type of food, a desire which in some cases was so intense as to create social and personal problems.
I symptoms of addiction described were: intense cravings, along with unsuccessful attempts to cut down on consumption, and signs of withdrawal, such as irritability, difficulty concentrating and headaches.

Women most at risk

The survey results were based on a representative sample of the US population consisting of 2,163 people between the ages of 50 and 80. 13% had two or more symptoms of addiction to processed foods (about 1 in 8 people), but nearly half of the participants (44%) had at least one symptom. Women aged between 50 and 64 made up 22% of the sample against 11% of men (twice) and between the ages of 65 and 80, women represented 12% of the sample against 4% of men. Even the social isolation of the elderly has played a (negative) role on the attachment to certain foods.

How is food addiction created?

The researchers wrote that addiction to such foods could stem from their ability to trigger the release of
dopamine from the brain at levels comparable to nicotine and alcohol. Not so much a need to gratify the palate, therefore, as that of experiencing a sort of alternative pleasure that can cope with the demands negative emotions. The association with mental health was particularly important for women: almost half of the women who reported suffering from bad psychological state they were also addicted to junk food.

How to handle food

From a nutritional point of view, a “drug” food is characterized by the presence, in abundant and often associated proportions, of salt, sugar and fat – explains Dr. Stefano Erzegovesi, nutritionist and psychiatrist – and this is true whether the food in question is sweet or savoury, as in the case of many industrial sweets with a high percentage of salt, or industrial sandwiches and pretzels containing sugar.
With these characteristics, they are foods with little nutritional value and which are not good for health: they are responsible forthe epidemic of God died which in turn favors the emergence of diffuse pi pathology in the western world, such as diabetes, tumors, cardiovascular problems.
In general, to manage the excessive desire for drugging foods it is not necessary to avoid them completely, but eat them very rarely and with the right slowness – explains Erzegovesi -, so as to be able to consciously recognize that we may not eat them because we do not like them and not because we obey a ban.