الفهرس 
Food AddictionOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Food addiction is a clinical phenomenon distinct from other forms of disordered eating; the concept is new and complex, but proven to be very important for understanding and solving the problem of obesity.
It refers to impaired control over eating behavior and psychological changes as in a case of chemical substance abuse (strong cravings, extreme difficulty in abstaining) that cause symptomatic presentation and may lead to clinical impairment.
If highly processed foods also have addictive potential, children may be more susceptible to this effect than adults due to neural and psychological vulnerabilities.
Food addiction diagnoses are positively associated with BMI and, therefore, it increased in obese individuals (blunted dopaminergic response, genetic predisposition). Moreover, this relationship between body mass and food addiction may be non-linear as normal or overweight individuals can also be classified as food addicted.
Based on its association with obesity, “food addiction” is presumably more prevalent among subjects with low socio-economic status as lacking of healthy beneficial food and exercises, negligence of parents and their preoccupation with work and lack of cultural awareness about the harms of obesity.
Underlying neuroendocrinal disturbances may be one of causes which decrease the levels of self-control and predisposes to develop substance use disorders, suggesting that the roots of substance use disorders for some persons can be seen in behaviors long before the onset of actual substance use itself.
Stress, anxiety and depressed mood have shown high comorbidity with and the potential to trigger bouts of addiction-like eating behavior in humans.
In the current study, There were 400 Egyptian adolescents recruited randomly from schools of high as well as low socioeconomic levels distributed in Cairo to assess the presence of depression and anxiety in Egyptian adolescents with and without food addiction by using three questionnaires CDI (child depression inventory), SCARD (Screen for Child Anxiety Related Disorders), YFAS (Yale food addiction scale) .
The prevalence of food addiction in the study adolescents was 12% who have clinically significant impairment and distress; there are subclinical levels of food addiction in the present sample which related to higher BMI and comorbid anxiety and depression.
The highest prevalent symptoms of food addiction among study subjects were tolerance (54%) followed by persistent desire (51%), withdrawal symptoms (34.3%).
58.3% of who diagnosed as food addiction were obese (according to BMI, waist and hip circumference measures), 83.3% of food addiction patients also had comorbid anxiety, 91.6% had comorbid depression and 81.2% had both anxiety and depression.
There was a positive significant difference between food addiction and the anthropometric measures (height, weight, BMI, waist & hip circumference and waist height ratio).
There was a positive significant difference between food addiction and separation anxiety, generalized anxiety and depression.
There was a linear correlation between food addiction and panic disorder, separation anxiety, generalized anxiety, social anxiety, school avoidance and depression.
There was a positive significant difference between the prevalent food addiction symptoms (tolerance, withdrawal symptoms) and panic disorder, generalized anxiety, separation anxiety, social anxiety disorder and school avoidance disorder.
These findings underscore the importance of looking at the public health consequences of the widespread subclinical food addiction symptoms, as well as clinically relevant problems.
The prevalence of depression was 79.3%, Anxiety 70.3% both anxiety and depression 60.75% of total study subjects.
The highest prevalent subtype among all study subjects was separation anxiety disorder (71.8%) panic disorder (61%) followed by school avoidance (39.8%).
In the role of an addictive process in childhood obesity, YFAS could be used in future research to identify children who exhibit signs of food addiction, which might be related to cognitive (e.g., attentional biases), behavioral (e.g., greater motivation to seek out high-calorie foods) and biological (e.g., elevated neural activation to cues) indicators linked with other types of addiction.
Further, the YFAS-C was developed to mirror the adult YFAS, allowing for the study of familial patterns of food addiction and underlying genetic factors.