🌿 RehabNest - Food Addiction Assessment
rehabnest.rxtoolspro.com | Understanding the pattern, not pursuing restriction
🍽️
Free AssessmentEating BehaviorConfidential
Food Addiction Assessment
This assessment looks at behavioural patterns, like loss of control, preoccupation, and difficulty cutting back, associated with addictive eating, based on the Yale Food Addiction Scale framework. It does not ask about weight, body shape, or calories, and this page does not provide any diet plan. If eating is causing you distress, a specialist can help you understand what's happening and what support fits.
A note before you begin: This page focuses on eating behaviour patterns, not body weight, shape, or calorie targets. If you are experiencing significant distress around food, eating, or your body, please also see the eating disorder distinction tab below and consider reaching out to the National Alliance for Eating Disorders for specialised support.
📋 Eating behaviour pattern assessment
Answer based on your experience over the past 12 months with any specific foods, often highly processed or high in sugar, fat, or refined carbohydrates.
0/9
This assessment is not a clinical diagnosis and does not replace evaluation by a professional. It does not provide dietary recommendations of any kind. A therapist or dietitian experienced in eating behaviour can offer a full evaluation and appropriate support.
🔍 Food addiction versus eating disorders
These frameworks overlap and can co-occur. This page is not designed to distinguish a diagnosis. A qualified professional can evaluate which framework, or combination, best fits your individual experience.
Food addiction model
Focuses on specific foods, often highly processed ones, and addiction-like criteria such as loss of control, tolerance, and withdrawal-like symptoms when cutting back. Not currently a standalone DSM-5 diagnosis, but an actively researched clinical framework.
Binge eating disorder
A formally recognised DSM-5 diagnosis involving recurrent episodes of eating large amounts of food with a sense of loss of control, accompanied by marked distress, without regular use of compensatory behaviours like purging.
Bulimia and anorexia nervosa
These involve a different core pattern centred on body image, weight control behaviours, and in bulimia's case compensatory behaviours following eating episodes. If you notice patterns like this, please reach out to an eating disorder specialist, as this requires different, specialised care.
If you notice signs of an eating disorder (extreme restriction, purging, intense fear of weight gain, or distorted body image alongside eating patterns), please contact the National Alliance for Eating Disorders or a specialised eating disorder treatment provider rather than relying on this general assessment alone.
🚩 Common patterns in addictive eating
Loss of control once eating begins
Intending to have a small amount of a specific food and finding yourself unable to stop once started is one of the most commonly reported patterns, mirroring the loss-of-control criteria central to substance use disorders.
Preoccupation and planning
Spending significant mental energy thinking about, planning, or anticipating eating certain foods, even when not physically hungry, reflects the preoccupation pattern common to addictive behaviours generally.
Continued use despite consequences
Continuing the eating pattern despite awareness of physical discomfort, emotional distress, or other negative consequences, similar to continued substance use despite known harm, is a core addiction-pattern indicator.
Using food to manage emotions
Turning to specific foods specifically to cope with stress, sadness, or other difficult emotions, rather than for hunger or enjoyment, often signals that food has taken on an emotional regulation function worth exploring with a professional.
⚕️ Getting help
This page intentionally does not provide diet advice, calorie targets, or food restriction plans. The right next step is professional evaluation, not self-directed dietary changes.
Therapy focused on eating behaviour patterns
A therapist experienced in addictive or compulsive eating patterns can help address the underlying drivers, often including emotional regulation and specific triggers, without focusing primarily on restriction or weight.
Registered dietitians with relevant specialisation
A dietitian familiar with food addiction or disordered eating patterns specifically, rather than a general weight-loss focused provider, can offer guidance that supports a healthier relationship with food rather than reinforcing restriction.
Peer support communities
Some people find structured peer support, such as Food Addicts Anonymous, helpful as a complement to professional treatment. As with any peer support model, this works best alongside, not instead of, individualised professional care.
📞
National Alliance for Eating Disorders
Helpline: 1-866-662-1235. Free, confidential support and referrals for eating-related concerns, including patterns that overlap with addictive eating.
The food addiction framework: where the evidence stands
Research on addictive eating, particularly using the Yale Food Addiction Scale developed by researchers at Yale University, has found that some people show patterns toward specific foods, often those high in sugar, fat, and refined carbohydrates, that resemble the diagnostic criteria for substance use disorders, including loss of control, tolerance, and withdrawal-like symptoms. This research remains an active and evolving area, and food addiction is not yet a standalone diagnosis, but it offers a useful lens for understanding eating patterns that don't fit neatly into other categories.
What matters most clinically is not which label applies, but getting appropriate support for the actual distress and impact you're experiencing. A professional evaluation can clarify whether a food addiction framework, an eating disorder framework, a co-occurring mental health condition, or some combination best explains your specific experience, and can guide you toward support that doesn't rely on the restrictive dieting approaches that often worsen these patterns. The emotional regulation toolkit can support work on the emotional dimension that frequently underlies these patterns.
A note on this page's intent: Nothing here is meant to encourage tracking, restricting, or eliminating specific foods on your own. The goal is understanding the pattern well enough to seek the right kind of professional support, not to provide a plan to follow independently.
People also ask about food addiction
Food addiction is not currently a standalone diagnosis in the DSM-5, but it is a recognised area of active clinical research, most associated with the Yale Food Addiction Scale, which applies substance use disorder criteria to patterns of eating specific foods, often highly processed ones high in sugar, fat, or refined carbohydrates. Many researchers and clinicians use this framework to understand loss-of-control eating, even though it is not yet a formal standalone diagnostic category.
Binge eating disorder is a formally recognised DSM-5 diagnosis centred on recurrent episodes of eating large amounts of food with a sense of loss of control, accompanied by distress, without regular compensatory behaviours. The food addiction model overlaps with this but specifically frames the pattern through an addiction lens, focused on particular foods and addiction-like criteria such as tolerance and withdrawal. The two concepts overlap significantly and can co-occur, and a specialist can help clarify which framework best fits an individual's experience.
Restrictive dieting is generally not recommended as a first response and can sometimes worsen loss-of-control eating patterns by increasing preoccupation with food and triggering rebound overeating. Working with a therapist experienced in eating patterns, and where appropriate a registered dietitian familiar with this specific framework, is a safer and more effective approach than self-directed restriction.