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Purpose – This chapter explores how discourses of obesity as addiction are taken up by weight loss surgery patients and medical and scientific professionals.

Methodology/approach – Based on 14 semistructured interviews, I discuss the ways in which bariatric patients partially account for their presurgical bodies and contemporary struggles with weight loss and regain by referencing food addiction. This work is part of a larger project involving 35 interviews and participant-observation work and therefore these results should thus be considered preliminary.

Findings – I argue that bariatric patients and bariatric professionals portray weight loss surgery as an extraordinary tool that allows the “out of control” to become controllable. However, bariatric patients also emphasize the hard work that is entailed in both losing weight and maintaining a weight loss even after surgery.

Social implications – I suggest that this portrayal, in addition to being an accurate assessment of the potential for regain following weight loss surgery, is a technology of stigma management.

Originality/value – This work contributes to the sociology of the body and medical sociology literatures by illustrating that, within a neoliberal and anti-fat social context, highlighting the hard work involved in weight loss and weight maintenance allows bariatric patients to demonstrate proper subjectivity and thereby reclaim “proper selves” as they work toward a “proper bodies.”

Episodes of compulsive eating may lead to addiction. Changing relative prices does not always work for many food addicts turned overweight or obese individuals. This paper points to when such situations may arise and how they can be remedied.

We modify the standard neoclassical economics model assumption of indifference curves being convex to the origin. It becomes violated in situations when compulsive eaters become food addicts. As a result of that, the assumption of the concave (quasi-concave) utility function is violated too. We also introduce the possibility that compulsive eaters may have stable but nonconstant preferences.

Most important finding of our model is that a smooth dynamic path to addiction, caused by habit, disappears. Hence, the ability for smooth adjustment to relative price changes due to policies targeting obesity may not be applicable for a compulsive addict. We postulate the existence of thresholds past in which irreversible harm to addicted overeaters may occur. Reaching such states implies that no economic tools at our disposal could reverse the harm, which, in turn, deem that many policies directed at altering relative prices are ineffective in correcting overeating addiction and its consequences.

Even if we believe in consumer sovereignty, it is possible to shape consumer behavior via policy actions, including the behavior of extremum seekers turned addicts. The public policy of obesity should consider, in this case, its social cost.

No prior research has considered food addiction in light of compulsive eating caused by extremum-seeking behavior. Addiction correcting food policies always relied on either rational or myopic addiction models.

The aim of this paper is to respond to the call for exploring and empirically testing both antecedents and outcomes of brand addiction and compulsive buying behaviour. The focus of the study is on the food habits of young female consumers.

To test the hypotheses, a survey design gathering cross-sectional primary data from 325 female Italian consumers and a structural equation modelling have been adopted.

Findings show that brand addiction is positively influenced by consumer resilience, leading to increased life happiness and self-esteem, while compulsive buying behaviour is negatively influenced by consumer resilience and positively influenced by impulsivity. Compulsive buying is also associated with brand addiction and emotional overeating. Emotional overeating is additionally influenced by impulsivity and the control variables of enjoyment of food and loneliness. Moreover, loneliness has a negative impact on life happiness and self-esteem.

The study applies the proposed theory by Mrad and Cui (2020) on the relationship between brand addiction and compulsive buying to food consumption. Furthermore, it expands on this research by investigating consumer characteristics as determinants and behavioural outcomes.

Some kinds of foods, by producing an effect like addiction, may trigger overeating. This paper aims to investigate whether excessive chocolate consumption and hunger cause food addiction.

Food cravings questionnaire-trait-reduced (FCQ-T-r), food cravings questionnaire-state (FCQ-S) and eating attitude test-26 (EAT-26) scales were used. The relation between chocolate addiction, anthropometric measurements, demographic characteristics, eating behavior of the people were analyzed. The study was conducted on 864 individuals between 17 and 64 years old (men = 327, women = 537).

As the body mass index (BMI) of the individuals increased, chocolate craving, chocolate hunger, thought of eating chocolate, lack of control of chocolate increased. Also, significant correlations were determined with BMI, respectively, (r = 0.39; r = 0.32; r = 0.33; r = 0.29; p < 0.001). The lack of control overeating chocolate, craving for chocolate was found to be higher in female participants than in male participants. It was seen that craving for chocolate decreases (r = −0.17; p < 0.001) with increasing age; this was more apparent in male participants compared to female participants. Besides, significant correlation was found (r = 0.76, p < 0.05) between the EAT-26, the craving to eat chocolate in this study. It was seen that individual, who were excessively eager to consume chocolate, exhibited abnormal eating behavior (29.50 ± 12.09). This showed that there is a positive relation (r = 0.08, p < 0.001) between food addiction, eating attitude disorder.

Food craving increases the consumption of food, especially chocolate, sugar, with high carbohydrate content and energy. This can lead to overeating and being overweight.

The purpose of this paper, a cross-cultural study, is twofold: first, to identify personal, social, demographical and marketing facets that imply fast food addiction in Pakistan and America, and second to explore the reasons of reduction in fast food consumption in Pakistan.

The present study followed an explanatory sequential mixed-methods research design. Both quantitative and qualitative data collection methods were used to obtain supportive results of fast food consumption with the help of defining logical relations between independent and dependent variables. Partial least square based structural equation modeling technique was used to analyze quantitative data. For qualitative data, NVivo 11 was used to explore themes.

Quantitative findings of Pakistani setting suggested that craving and impulsiveness have a significant relation with addiction and have no mediation effect in both the countries. However, these results contradict with US study. Qualitative findings explored many personal, social, marketing and health factors that have affected fast food market of Pakistan which include low income, price-sensitive market, low quality, poor services, PFA, word of mouth, mood, obesity, environment and cultural influence on the consumption behavior of Pakistani consumers.

This study is restricted to the consumption behavior of fast food only in two countries the USA and Pakistan. Hence, the results of this study cannot be generalized to other countries’ cultural and traditional values. In addition, this study only focuses on personal, social and marketing factors that implicate fast food addiction.

The consumption of fast food was the focus of analysis. Therefore, research adds value to service industry and helps in developing growth and marketing strategies for the fast food industry.

Paramedics are responsible for managing emergencies, caring for patients and performing life-saving procedures under heavy workloads, which can have a significant negative effect on their emotional eating and food addiction (FA) behaviors. Thus, this cross-sectional study aims to shed light on the relationship between emotional eating tendencies and FA in paramedics by considering their food preferences, sex, and body mass index (BMI) factors.

The questionnaire consisted of Yale Food Addiction Scale and Emotional Eating Questionnaire (EEQ), as well as sex, age, weight, height and number of snacks and main meals collected face-to-face from the 196 paramedics.

The FA prevalence was 14.9%, and more than half of the paramedics were emotional eaters. The total score of the EEQ was significantly higher in the FA diagnosed group than in the group FA not diagnosed (p < 0.001). The food preferences of the paramedics were found to differ significantly depending on whether they were diagnosed with FA or emotional eating. Being a food addict or emotional eater significantly increases the odds of consuming chocolate-wafer, pie-cake, chips, pastries, pasta and fries (p < 0.05), and participants with FA diagnosis and emotional eaters were more likely to prefer these foods than those with nondiagnosis and nonemotional eaters (p < 0.05).

Findings highlighted the connection between FA and the emotional eating behavior of paramedics, indicating that they attempt to compensate for their emotional ups and downs through eating. The job-related stress and emotional eating behaviors of paramedics may increase their BMI and susceptibility to FA.

Purpose – To reconsider the historical relationship between addiction and obesity, which current literature tends to treat as unrelated until the late twentieth century.

Approach – We describe the forms of sociality and therapeutic discourses manifested in the emerging weight loss group movement from the 1940s until 1970 in cultural and intellectual context, drawing mainly on popular media and medical literature. The histories of these ‘Fatties Anonymous’ groups serve as valuable lens for studying the mutable cultural linkage between drug addiction and obesity that was first forged in the golden age of psychoanalysis.

Findings – We show that medicine began interpreting obesity as addiction around 1940 and that this view achieved dominance in both medical and popular discourse by 1950. The theoretical framing of a psychoanalytical interpretation of obesity in the 1940s, combined with the simultaneous rise to prominence of obesity-related problems in public health and popular stigma around fatness, was translated in the Cold War United States into a popular mutual-aid weight loss movement modelled on Alcoholics Anonymous.

Originality value – Our account challenges the present received view that the stigmatised health conditions of obesity and addiction only came to be related in the late twentieth century. There is notable similarity between the 1950s ‘Fatties Anonymous’ type group and present public health campaigns in fostering the individual's sense of self-control and encouraging self-enterprising improvement. Neither historical and contemporary similarities nor differences should be elided. Further research in this area would be of value to current and future developments in public health.

So much has been written about addiction, one can reasonably ask why we need another volume on the subject now. The pieces gathered here take up a number of current trends that make this exactly the right time to take a fresh look at addiction. These include: debates over the nosology of addiction as part of the revision to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM); the expansion of addiction's meaning and spheres of control beyond alcohol and illicit substances; the rise of neuroscience; the increasing ‘pharmaceuticalization’ of everyday life and new pharmaceutical treatments for addiction; growing awareness about the intersection of the drug war and the mass incarceration of people of color; and new theoretical frameworks for understanding the role of addiction as a fundamental technique of social control. These trends are reshaping addiction in both new and not-so-new ways that warrant the interrogation this volume provides.

Briefly reviews issues of palatability, food composition, energy metabolism, and eating behaviour in relation to overeating and obesity, with a particular emphasis on the possible role of popular, sweet and high‐fat “snack” foods. Consumption of such foods may be one contributor to a high overall dietary fat intake. However, while it is increasingly clear that relative intakes of fat (but not carbohydrate) may be causally associated with the development of obesity, it is difficult to relate this condition to the consumption of any single food or food group. Many popular “snack” foods present problems of control for individuals attempting to restrict or reduce their energy intakes and, by virtue of the high fat content and energy density of such foods, they may be viewed as possible contributors to overeating amongst susceptible individuals.

This study seeks to find the dollar value of social costs of gambling. The authors use data from a survey of 99 members of Gamblers Anonymous (GA) groups in southern Nevada. The GA members were asked many questions about their behavior while they were active gamblers, such as how often they missed work because of gambling, how much they borrowed because of gambling, how much they stole because of gambling and their experiences with the judicial system and welfare systems because of gambling. Societal costs of each behavior were calculated and annualized. It was determined that each of the compulsive gamblers imposed social costs of $19,711 on others in southern Nevada. Of these costs, $1,428 (7.2%) were governmental costs, while $6,616 (33.6%) represented economic losses for southern Nevada. Using estimates of the numbers of pathological and problem gamblers in Nevada, it was determined that the overall social costs of compulsive and problem gambling in southern Nevada ranged from $314 million to $545 million per year.