Title : The root causes of food addiction beyond physical cravings
Abstract:
Many people who struggle with sugar cravings, emotional eating, or compulsive snacking focus almost entirely on food choices, willpower, and physical hunger. Yet repeated eating patterns can also be shaped by emotional triggers, learned associations, stress responses, and deeply held beliefs that operate outside of conscious awareness. In this presentation, Dr. David Amponsah draws on more than 25 years of work in medicine, clinical hypnotherapy, and holistic wellness to examine food-related behavior through a broader mind-body-spirit lens.
The session explores how unresolved emotional experiences, habitual coping patterns, and subconscious beliefs may reinforce cravings and make change difficult even when a person understands what to eat. Participants will be introduced to practical concepts for recognizing their own triggers, interrupting automatic responses, and developing a more intentional relationship with food. Dr. Amponsah also discusses the role of meditation, affirmations, self-awareness, and other complementary mind-body practices within his holistic framework.
Rather than presenting food struggles as a simple failure of discipline, the presentation encourages participants to look beneath the behavior and identify the emotional and cognitive patterns that may be sustaining it. Attendees leave with a clearer framework for understanding why cravings can persist and with practical reflection tools that can support healthier, more sustainable behavior change.
Learning Objectives
- Identify emotional and situational triggers that can contribute to cravings and compulsive eating.
- Describe how subconscious beliefs and learned patterns may influence food-related behavior.
- Recognize mind-body practices that can support greater awareness and intentional behavior change.
- Apply a broader framework for examining persistent food cravings beyond physical hunger alone.
