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Symptoms of Food Addiction Higher in Low-Income Women Experiencing Food Insecurity
Food insecurity was associated with increased food addiction symptoms in low-income women, according to a study published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
“An emerging line of research suggests that highly processed foods can trigger addictive processes that can lead to a compulsive pattern of overeating, with significant physical and mental health consequences,” said first author Lindsey Parnarouskis, MS, a doctoral candidate at the University of Michigan Department of Psychology in Ann Arbor. “We know that individuals with food insecurity are more likely to live in an environment dominated by these highly processed foods and are more heavily targeted by the food industry. We hypothesized that individuals with food insecurity might be at greater risk for highly processed food addiction, but no one had previously investigated that.”
The investigation was a secondary analysis of data from two earlier studies. One study investigated the effect of a mindfulness-based intervention on gestational weight gain among low-income pregnant women in California from 2011 to 2013, and the other study assessed associations between food insecurity, child weight gain, and maternal weight gain among low-income families in Michigan from 2018 to 2019.
For the current study, researchers looked at food addiction symptoms, as measured by the Yale Food Addiction Scale, for 208 pregnant women with overweight or obesity from the first study and 181 female caregivers for children aged 8 through 10 for the second study.
Food addiction symptoms were 21% higher in pregnant women living in food-insecure households compared with food-secure households in the first sample, researchers reported. In the second, food addiction symptoms were 56% higher in caregivers in food-insecure households compared with food-secure households.
“A key strength of the study is that we observed consistent associations across 2 distinct samples of low-income female adults with a high prevalence of food insecurity,” said lead investigator Cindy W. Leung, ScD, MPH, an assistant professor of public health nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts. “Despite data collected in different geographic regions, at different time periods, and different stages of parenthood or caregiving, the similarity of the associations suggests that this link between food insecurity and food addiction is concerning and deserves further continued investigation.”
Because the study is the first to report the association, the findings are considered preliminary and require further research both to replicate the link and provide additional information.
“We need more research on what mechanisms are driving this association,” said Dr Leung, “to inform policies to ensure that people have equitable access to nutritious food.”
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