Food and Addiction: A Comprehensive Handbook, Second Edition brings scientific order to the issue of food and addiction, spanning multiple disciplines to create the foundation for what is a rapidly advancing field and to highlight needed advances in science and public policy. It assembles leading scientists and policy makers from fields such as nutrition, addiction, psychology, epidemiology, and public health to explore and analyze the scientific evidence on the addictive properties of food. It provides complete and comprehensive coverage of all subjects pertinent to food and addiction, from how the brain processes food reward and the role of the gut-microbiome in addictive eating, to diagnostic criteria for food addiction, the contribution of industry tactics to the creation of addictive foods, and behavioral, neurological, and pharmacologic interventions, as well as the clinical, public health, legal, and policy implications of recognizing the validity of food addiction. Each chapter reviews the available science and notes needed scientific advances in the field.

The food environment has changed dramatically and is now dominated by foods with unnaturally high levels of sugar, fat, and salt that are intensely rewarding. Scientific evidence has increased rapidly in the last few decades that these types of foods are capable of triggering addictive processes, which may be a key driver in the rising rates of obesity and diet-related disease around the globe. Food and Addiction: A Comprehensive Handbook, Second Edition provides a multidisciplinary review of the most cutting-edge science on the contribution of addictive processes to how we consume food. Top experts in the field of nutrition, addiction, psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience, epidemiology, public health, marketing, and policy come together to provide a scoping view of this rapidly evolving scientific area that has important implications for the well-being and health of adults and children around the globe.