Article Considers Food Addiction Under DSM-5 Criteria

An article examining food addiction in light of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) has concluded that the latest edition’s new criteria for substance use disorders (SUDs) “may be valuable for food addiction research, even if some of those symptoms may rarely be endorsed by participants exhibiting addiction-like eating.” Adrian Meule and Ashley Gearhardt, “Food Addiction in Light of the DSM-5,” Nutrients, September 2014. Claiming that further studies are needed to evaluate the new criteria’s relevance to food addiction, the article’s authors explain that DSM-5 now includes the following criteria for SUDs: (i) “failure to fulfill major role obligations at work, school, or home as a result of substance use”; (ii) “continued substance use despite social or interpersonal problems caused or exacerbated by substance use”; and (iii) “recurrent substance use in situations in which it is physically hazardous.” The manual has also defined a new symptom of “craving, or a strong desire or urge to use the substance,” in addition to including gambling disorder as a non-substance-related disorder.

Highlighting these changes, the article identifies new research opportunities designed to draw parallels between the new DSM-5 criteria and overeating. As the authors conclude, “[F]uture investigations need to take great care that the new SUD criteria are properly translated to food and eating and that reasonable diagnostic thresholds are applied when diagnosing food addiction. Finally, we emphasize the need to think more mechanistically in the evaluation of food addiction by examining the contribution of biological, psychological, and behavioral circuits implicated in addiction to problematic eating behaviors.”

Issue 538