Will GLP-1s Fix Or Sugar-Coat Our Relationship with Food?

Vanessa Kredler Author

This blog explores the significant cultural shift that we're seeing in the food addiction space with the use of GLP-1 medications.

Key Summary

While GLP-1 medications may quiet the "food noise" and facilitate weight loss for certain individuals, they cannot resolve the underlying pain that drove us to use food as a shield in the first place. But they may offer a temporary window of opportunity to do the inner work—provided they are clinically appropriate, medically supervised, and paired with trauma-informed support.

Disclaimer

What is really important for me to note from the outset is that I do not endorse or oppose the use of GLP-1 medication. Because of the cohort of clients that I most often work with, it is important to note that individuals with eating disorders and trauma histories need to be very cautious, and the medical professionals advising them must ensure careful screening and supervision or referral to other options. As a general note, the information provided on this website and in my blogs are intended for general informational purposes only and do not constitute medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. While I am a registered counsellor, I am not a medical doctor or qualified medical professional. My work draws on research, clinical training, and lived experience to offer support that may complement, but not replace, professional healthcare.

A Cultural Paradigm Shift

All of that said, seeing an increasing number of clients who are using GLP-1 medications, I can’t help but reflect on the massive cultural paradigm shift we are living through right now. If we have spent years struggling with chronic binge eating, food addiction, or compulsive overeating, it is almost impossible to open our phones without being inundated with headlines about GLP-1 receptor agonists, such as medications like Ozempic, Wegovy, and Mounjaro.

As a counsellor working with clients struggling with ultra-processed food addiction, binge eating, and compulsive eating, I see firsthand that many people also carry type 2 diabetes and struggle daily with metabolic health challenges. This is no surprise given the incredibly high correlation between type 2 diabetes and food addiction.

Sometimes, when we have food addiction, we find ourselves living in a higher weight body, holding a deep, exhausting desire for weight loss because we are terrified about being unable to control our eating and jeopardising our health. But often, it runs much deeper than that. Weight loss, for many of us, is not just about medical markers; it is about self-esteem, body image, discomfort in our own skin, and surviving the deeply internalised weight stigma woven into the fabric of our society.

Regardless of the motivation for weight loss, the promise of GLP-1 medications feels like an answered prayer. For the first time in our lives, the "food noise"—that relentless, exhausting mental loop calculating our next meal, our next binge, or our next restriction—is simply turned down. The promise of finally losing weight, having a quiet mind, and ending the chronic discomfort within our own bodies, is profoundly alluring.

If only it were that simple. Lose weight, shrink the body, and all will be well.

Beyond being a counsellor, I also have lived experience of food addiction, disordered patterns of eating, weight cycling, and complex trauma. I see the nuanced motivations, drivers, and patterns that we bring to the table, and how deeply they are rooted in painful past experiences. They are so deep that many of us are initially not aware of the pain sitting underneath the food. What surfaces in the counselling room is a deep and urgent realisation:

The medication may have stopped our hand from reaching for the food. Maybe some weight has even come off. But why do we still feel so empty inside? Why is the internal unease, that anxious hum, that sense of not being right in the world still so incredibly strong? Why is the relentless fear still there?

If we are wondering whether a weekly injection will finally fix our relationship with food, the honest, clinical reality is simple: It can alter our biochemistry, but it cannot heal our biography. It cannot bring that inner sense of safety, belonging, and serenity that so many of us crave once the physical food cravings give way to the true underlying needs.

The Biological Promise vs. The Psychological Reality

To understand why GLP-1s alone aren't a permanent cure for food addiction, we have to look at what they actually do.

In his book Diet, Drugs, and Dopamine, former FDA Commissioner Dr. David A. Kessler points out that our modern food landscape is filled with highly rewarding, ultra-processed foods specifically engineered to hijack our brain chemistry. GLP-1 medications work by targeting the exact neural circuits responsible for these cravings. They dampen the dopamine-driven reward loops, allowing rational decision-making to step back into the driver’s seat.

Dr. Kessler—who openly shares his own lived experience with living in a larger body and navigating his own battles with food addiction—argues that the ideal path forward isn't relying solely on a pharmaceutical fix. Rather, he suggests using the medication, if appropriate, as a temporary bridge toward deep behavioural change. It is fundamentally about skills, not pills.

Recommended Resource: You can listen to a deeply insightful interview detailing these concepts on the Food Junkies Podcast interview with Dr. David Kessler here.

While navigating these medications comes with standard physical adjustments—such as managing gut health, nausea, or prioritising muscle maintenance—my sense as a counsellor with an insight into many individuals’ deeper internal world, is that the true challenge we face isn't just physical. It is deeply psychological.

Treating food addiction and compulsive patterns around food purely as a biological glitch that needs an injection is an attempt to make the consequences of these underlying patterns go away through weight loss. But when we do that, we miss the entire point of the adaptation that addiction is.

Why did we have those patterns in the first place?

Our relationship with food has deep intergenerational roots. It is an intelligent, genius, creative adaptation to a profound need to soothe pain and nervous system dysregulation.

In Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy, we would say that the parts of us that compel us to eat addictively are the ultimate "Firefighter" parts in our internal system. They are coping mechanisms desperately trying to douse the flames of deep, underlying wounds of developmental trauma and emotional unsafety—the complex trauma that comes from a pervasive, ongoing environment of relational unsafety and absence of attuned caregiver presence.

When a medication artificially disconnects us from our primary coping strategy, those underlying emotional needs don't magically vanish. They are simply sugar-coated by the drug. We have to ask ourselves an uncomfortable question: How will these protective parts of us now do their jobs? If food is no longer a viable strategy because the medicine has blocked the dopamine reward, those parts will inevitably find another way to quiet the internal unease.

The Brain Science: Why We Can’t Out-Medicate a Need for Safety

Current neuroscience is revealing something remarkable: GLP-1 medications don't just quiet "food noise." Leading addiction scholars, including Dr. Anna Lembke at Stanford University, note that because these drugs target the brain's core dopamine reward pathway, they are actively showing promise in calming other compulsive behaviours, like alcohol abuse, gambling, and shopping.

Biologically, this is an incredible frontier. But as trauma-informed practitioners, we have to look past the chemistry and look at the human soul. If we are using a behaviour to survive deep, unresolved pain & ongoing nervous system dysregulation, blocking our brain's reward centres doesn't make the pain go away.

The Window of Opportunity: Now is the Time to Start the Work

If the deep, systemic needs that food once fulfilled are left unaddressed, the compulsive drive for survival inside us will inevitably look for a new way to express itself. The nervous system remains fundamentally dysregulated. The fear of “never enough”, the survival fear, the endless hunger for certainty, safety and stability remain intact, and parts of us will be hunting for new protective strategies to douse that existential pain and ensure survival. Because that’s its job. Survival.

This is where we might view GLP-1s through the exact same lens as SSRIs for severe mental health struggles. We rarely hear anyone say, "I completely recovered from my complex trauma because of my anti-depressant." Instead, we recognise that the medication can help us function. It lifts the debilitating, exhausting fog so that we have the baseline to actually sit on the therapy couch and do the heavy lifting.

Provided that they are biologically appropriate, safely prescribed, and carefully supervised by medical professionals, GLP-1s can serve that exact same purpose for food addiction. By temporarily quieting the physiological storm of food noise, they open up a sacred, temporary window of opportunity.

Now is the time. While the food noise is quiet, we finally have the spaciousness to learn some of the skills that help us live a life that we value. To trade in survival skills for life skills. Some of these skills and tools may be very practical to help us with regular nutritious and nourishing eating habits. Other skills allow us to build true emotional capacity, become more effective readers and communicators of our needs, learn somatic nervous system regulation, and engage in the parts-work dialogue required to unburden the trauma we've been carrying for decades.

Provided there is adequate screening before prescribing, and appropriate medical supervision, we have the window of opportunity to build our capacity to live more fulfilling and effective lives, and for those of us who choose, to enable deeper healing of underlying wounds rather than bypassing them.

If you are seeking support with food addiction, compulsive eating or binge eating, with or without GLP-1 medication, please reach out.

References

Horsager, C., Bruun, J. M., Færk, E., Hagstrøm, S., Lauritsen, M. B., & Østergaard, S. D. (2023). Food addiction is strongly associated with type 2 diabetes. Clinical Nutrition, 42(6), 940–947. https://www.sciencedirect.com/...

Kessler, D. A. (2025). Diet, drugs, and dopamine: The new science of achieving a healthy weight. Flatiron Books. 

Kredler, V. (2024). Blog: Memory reconsolidation is how Internal Family Systems leads to transformation. Vanessa Kredler.

https://www.vanessakredler.com/blog/memory-reconsolidation-is-how-internal-family-systems-leads-to-transformation

Kredler, V. (2026). Blog: What is food addiction? Vanessa Kredler. https://www.vanessakredler.com/blog/what-is-food-addiction

Kredler, V. (2024). What is complex trauma? Vanessa Kredler. https://www.vanessakredler.com/blog/what-is-trauma-and-what-do-we-mean-when-we-talk-about-complex-trauma

Conley, M., & Stanford University. (2025, April 1). Five things to know about GLP-1s like Ozempic and addiction treatment. Stanford Report. https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2025/04/glp1-ozempic-addiction-treatment-research

Srinivasan, N. M., Farokhnia, M., Farinelli, L. A., Ferrulli, A., & Leggio, L. (2025). GLP-1 Therapeutics and Their Emerging Role in Alcohol and Substance Use Disorders: An Endocrinology Primer. Journal of the Endocrine Society, 9(11), bvaf141. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41081017/

Kennedy, C., Painshab, M. & V. Tarman (Hosts). (2025). Food Junkies Podcast with Dr David Kessler [Audio podcast]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ampqFMFkGT0

Categories: : Addiction, Food Addiction