There is no general agreement among the experts on the exact
causes of the growing obesity crisis in America and around the
world. Easy access to inexpensive calorie-dense but
nutritionally poor food and sedentary lifestyles are often named
as leading factors. Our culture that promotes ever-increasing
consumption my also play a role. But could it be that our eating
habits can make us not only physically ill but also harm our
psychological and emotional well-being? Compulsive Eating
Disorders Are on the Rise In her book, titled “Emotional
Overeating” (2012), Dr. Marcia Sirota, a Toronto-based
psychiatrist who specializes in the treatment of addiction, says
that constant eating, especially when it leads to weight
problems, is actually a form of psychotic behavior. “It seems as
though we’ve become a society of addicts,” she says. “In
particular, we’ve become a nation of compulsive overeaters,
hyper-focused on everything having to do with food and eating.”
Even our efforts to control our weight through dieting ca