Personally, I feel we are all "overeaters" by nature. In other words, I don't think having a "heavy" appetite is abnormal.

We're supposed to constantly seek out food, because in the grand scheme of things, over 2.5 million years of evolution, food has been hard to get, and hard for our bodies to process as compared to the ultra-refined foods of today.

I think where it becomes an eating disorder is when we follow our natural biological urge to find/consumer food but unfortunately we do it with the types of foods that are available today, so as we grow into adulthood we start looking "heavy". We go on our first diet, denying ourselves what our bodies want, and it's all downhill from there. Food becomes a primary focus because we're never sure when we will get more of it.

Therefore, I wouldn't classify it as an addiction per se. Especially once we've dieted--even one time--our bodies ultra-crave very refined foods because our bodies wonder when the next food will come from...so they demand foods that can be stored right away, "just in case".

And round and round it goes...and gets worse and worse year-on-year. It's pretty unfair, really. But anyone who thinks he/she is an "addict" or "lazy" or a "glutton" or a "heavy eater" should realize that she is none of those things. Rather, she's a homo sapiens sapiens. Period.