Food Addiction
The purpose of The Food Addiction Workbook is to provide helping professionals with cognitive and behavioral assessments, tools, and exercises that can be utilized to treat the root psychological causes of a food addiction. It is designed to help people identify and change negative, unhealthy thoughts and behaviors that may have led to a food addiction. The activities contained in this workbook can assist participants to identify their triggers that can lead to an addiction to food, and teach them ways to overcome and manage those triggers.
The Food Addiction Workbook will help participants to help themselves in these ways:
· Recognize that they are experiencing an addiction problem.
· Reflect and become aware of the behaviors that were part of, and arose from, the addiction.
· Build self-esteem in positive capabilities outside of eating.
· Understand the triggers for preoccupation with various aspects of eating behavior.
· Develop greater self-acceptance and the ability to change ineffective behaviors.
· Understand recurring patterns that indicate an addiction to food.
· Learn ways to live a new life without the need to obsess about eating food.
The Food Addiction Workbook is a practical tool for teachers, counselors, and helping professionals in their work with people affected by an addiction to food. The modules can be used either individually or as part of an integrated curriculum. The facilitator may choose to administer one of the activities with a group or administer some of the assessments over one or more days as a workshop.
This workbook contains five separate modules of activity-based handouts that will help participants learn more about themselves and about their addiction to food. These modules serve as avenues for self-reflection and group experiences revolving around topics of importance in the lives of the participants in the group.
The activities in this workbook are reproducible. Minor modifications are permitted to suit participants. Copyright is retained by the authors and must be included on reproduced materials.
Food Addiction Modules
Module 1: Dealing With Cravings
This module helps participants investigate their eating behaviors and cravings. The module explores why people have cravings, ways to distract themselves from these cravings, healthy substitutes for cravings, and the long-term consequences of binge eating.
Module 2: Emotional Eating
This module helps participants to explore why they turn to food when they are feeling a variety of emotions: understand their eating schedule, identify eating triggers, learn effective ways of coping without eating, and learn how to be more mindful while eating.
Module 3: Consequences of a Food Addiction
This module helps participants examine the consequences of problem eating behavior, the physical consequences of poor eating habits, their eating behaviors and how they can affect self-esteem, and the ways people who are addicted to food attempt to isolate themselves socially from family and friends.
Module 4: Healthy Routines
This module helps participants be more mindful of their eating behaviors, rely on exercise to help curb eating behaviors, enhance good sleep behaviors, use physical activity to think less about eating, set goals for effective eating behaviors, and avoid junk food.
Module 5: Coping Strategies
This module helps participants discover ways to cope with their addiction to food by planning healthy ways of shopping for groceries, exploring how they see themselves when they look in the mirror, and identifying people to whom they compare themselves.
Ester R.A. Leutenberg has worked in the mental health field for many years as a publisher, author, and advocate for those suffering from loss. She personally experienced a devastating loss when her son Mitchell, after struggling with a mental illness for eight years, died by suicide in 1986. Soon after, as a way of both healing and helping others, Ester co-founded Wellness Reproductions & Publishing with her daughter Kathy Khalsa and began developing therapeutic products that help facilitators help their clients.
With Whole Person Associates, Ester has co-written several books and corresponding card decks including:
GriefWork ~ Healing from Loss, Breaking Up is Hard to Do, Creating a Healthy Balanced Life, The Complete Caregiver Support Guide, Life Skills to Help Teens Balance Way Too Much, Motivation, and
Veterans - Surviving and Thriving after Trauma, Transitional Life Skills for Teens series, and the
Optimal Well-Being for Senior Adults series. Visit WholePerson.com for a complete list.
Ester, a breast cancer survivor since 2003, counsels other survivors in overcoming body and loss issues. Ester is a board member of SOS (Survivors of Suicide) in Tucson AZ and vice-president of the Coyote Task Force in Tucson. (An agency to support individuals recovering from persistent, chronic mental illnesses and to help them regain their ability to move towards their recovery with a focus on reintegration into the community.)
John J. Liptak, EdD has many years of experience in providing counseling services to individuals and groups in a variety of settings including job training programs, correctional institutions, colleges, and universities. In addition, John has years of teaching experience as an adjunct professor at Radford University.
John frequently conducts workshops on assessment-related topics. He has written three books on career-related topics. His books have been featured in numerous newspapers including
The Washington Post, and
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. His work has also been featured on MSNBC, CNN Radio, and on the PAX/ION television series, “Success without a College Degree.”
With Ester and Kathy, he has written three other comprehensive books for teachers and counselors to use with their students and clients: The Self-Esteem Program, The Social Skills Program and The Stress Management Program: Inventories, Activities & Educational Handouts.
Ester and John continue to co-write workbooks and corresponding card decks in each of these series that help facilitators help their teen and adult participants: Coping, Erasing the Stigma of Mental Health Issues through Awareness, Working With Families, Mental Health & Life Skills, Mind-Body Wellness, and Teen Mental Health & Life Skills, all published by Whole Person Associates. Visit WholePerson.com for a complete list.
