Think about the number one reasons why people are overweight nowadays. Overweight people fall into one of two different categories.
Either they have an unhealthy lifestyle – working long hours, eating out all the time, not getting enough exercise – or they simply eat too much, often in a compulsive way.
This type of eating – eating when one isn’t hungry, for example, or eating for emotional reasons rather than physical hunger – is really a type of addiction. It should be understood as an addiction, and it often is.
For example, the group Overeaters Anonymous functions on many of the same principles as AA or other twelve step programs. Excessive eating is treated like an addiction because that’s exactly what it is.