The short version
Dopamine is not the brain's "pleasure chemical." Decades of work by Kent Berridge and Terry Robinson show it drives wanting (motivation and craving), while liking (the pleasure itself) runs on separate, smaller brain systems.
Wanting is triggered by cues and turned up by states like stress, emotional excitement, and hunger. It can grow even when liking stays the same.
"Food addiction" is an active scientific debate, not a settled diagnosis. Coaches should not label foods or clients as addicted.
In session, the wanting and liking split gives clients a way to understand cravings without blaming their willpower.
Dopamine is about wanting
Many popular articles call dopamine the "feel-good" neurotransmitter. The research behind incentive salience says otherwise.
In the late 1980s, Berridge and Robinson expected to show that dopamine creates pleasure. Instead, rats with nearly all of their brain dopamine depleted stopped seeking food, yet still showed normal "liking" facial reactions to sugar (Berridge & Robinson, 2016). Their 1998 review reported rats depleted of up to 99% of dopamine in key regions still showed normal pleasure reactions to sweet tastes and normal disgust to bitter ones (Berridge & Robinson, 1998). Their conclusion: dopamine assigns incentive salience, the quality that makes a reward and its cues attention-grabbing and desired, rather than generating the pleasure itself.
Human studies point the same way. Berridge and Robinson (2016) summarize research in which lowering dopamine signaling did not reduce people's pleasure ratings of tasty foods, and brain imaging tracked ratings of wanting more closely than ratings of liking. Pleasure itself appears to come from small "hedonic hotspots" in the brain, while wanting is generated by a much larger, sturdier system (Berridge & Kringelbach, 2015).
Dopamine also plays a role in learning. Schultz (2015) describes dopamine neurons that signal reward prediction errors, firing when a reward is better than expected. With repetition, that response shifts from the reward to the earliest cue that predicts it. That is one reason a logo, a drive-through, or the 3 p.m. slump can start a craving before any food appears.
How cues turn wanting up
In this research, "wanting" is not the same as a considered goal. It is a fast, cue-triggered pull that can happen with or without awareness (Morales & Berridge, 2020). How strong that pull feels depends on the cue and on the person's current state. Stress, emotional excitement, and relevant appetites can amplify it (Berridge & Robinson, 2016). Hunger and fullness also shift how much a food is liked, a pattern known as alliesthesia (Morales & Berridge, 2020).
The key point for coaching is that wanting and liking can come apart. A person can feel a strong urge for a food and then find the eating itself only mildly enjoyable. Morales and Berridge (2020) describe emerging evidence that some cases of binge eating may involve heightened brain reactivity to food cues, while noting this research is still developing.
Where the science is debated
Much of the mechanism work comes from animal studies. Two human questions remain open.
Is "food addiction" real? Gearhardt and colleagues (2023) note that addiction to foods is not a diagnosis in the DSM-5, but research using the Yale Food Addiction Scale, a self-report questionnaire, gives pooled estimates of about 14% of adults and 12% of children meeting its criteria. They argue ultra-processed foods can be addictive. In a published debate, Fletcher and Kenny (2018) took opposite sides and agreed there is no consensus; Fletcher pointed out that no specific addictive substance in food has been identified. Hebebrand and colleagues (2014) proposed "eating addiction" instead, framing the problem as a behavior rather than a substance.
Cause or consequence? Volkow, Wang, and Baler (2011) reviewed imaging studies linking differences in dopamine pathways to overeating, and proposed that overeating may itself change how these reward circuits work. Which comes first is still unsettled. Morales and Berridge (2020) review evidence that some of these brain changes follow from long-term eating patterns rather than cause them, and say prospective studies are needed to decide.
Using it with clients
The wanting and liking split takes the moral weight off a craving. It is a cue-driven pull, not a flaw.
Separate the two. Invite the client to notice how strong the urge was and, separately, how much they actually enjoyed the food. Many clients are surprised by the gap. This is noticing, not restricting.
Map the cues and states. Help the client identify their own triggers: times, places, feelings, ads, or being tired or very hungry. The client decides which, if any, to change.
Plan for the surroundings. Because wanting is cue-driven, adjusting surroundings ahead of time often works better than resisting in the moment. Let the client design the plan.
Stay out of food labels. If a client calls themselves a "food addict," reflect their experience without endorsing or arguing with the label.
Example lines: - "What did you notice about how much you wanted it compared with how much you enjoyed it?" - "When does that pull tend to show up for you?" - "Would it be useful if I shared some research on why cravings can feel strong even when the food isn't that satisfying?" - "It sounds like you're tired of fighting this with willpower alone. What would you like to try instead?"
Where coaching stops
Coaches don't diagnose eating disorders or addictions. Refer to the client's physician or a mental health professional with eating disorder expertise if a client describes repeated episodes of eating with a sense of lost control, compensating after eating, or significant distress about food or body. Questions about what to eat go to a registered dietitian, and questions about medications that act on dopamine go to the prescriber or pharmacist.
Go deeper
The Weight-Inclusive Coaching for Clients Who Want Weight Loss package, which covers cravings, food cues, and reward, is in development.
References
Berridge, K. C., & Kringelbach, M. L. (2015). Pleasure systems in the brain. Neuron, 86(3), 646–664. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2015.02.018
Berridge, K. C., & Robinson, T. E. (1998). What is the role of dopamine in reward: Hedonic impact, reward learning, or incentive salience? Brain Research Reviews, 28(3), 309–369. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0165-0173(98)00019-8
Berridge, K. C., & Robinson, T. E. (2016). Liking, wanting, and the incentive-sensitization theory of addiction. American Psychologist, 71(8), 670–679. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000059
Fletcher, P. C., & Kenny, P. J. (2018). Food addiction: A valid concept? Neuropsychopharmacology, 43(13), 2506–2513. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41386-018-0203-9
Gearhardt, A. N., Bueno, N. B., DiFeliceantonio, A. G., Roberto, C. A., Jiménez-Murcia, S., & Fernandez-Aranda, F. (2023). Social, clinical, and policy implications of ultra-processed food addiction. BMJ, 383, e075354. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2023-075354
Hebebrand, J., Albayrak, Ö., Adan, R., Antel, J., Dieguez, C., de Jong, J., Leng, G., Menzies, J., Mercer, J. G., Murphy, M., van der Plasse, G., & Dickson, S. L. (2014). "Eating addiction," rather than "food addiction," better captures addictive-like eating behavior. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 47, 295–306. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2014.08.016
Morales, I., & Berridge, K. C. (2020). "Liking" and "wanting" in eating and food reward: Brain mechanisms and clinical implications. Physiology & Behavior, 227, 113152. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physbeh.2020.113152
Schultz, W. (2015). Neuronal reward and decision signals: From theories to data. Physiological Reviews, 95(3), 853–951. https://doi.org/10.1152/physrev.00023.2014
Volkow, N. D., Wang, G.-J., & Baler, R. D. (2011). Reward, dopamine and the control of food intake: Implications for obesity. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 15(1), 37–46. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2010.11.001
