I hurt, that's why I eat - the truth behind emotional eating

I hurt, that's why I eat - the truth behind emotional eating

We live in a culture where food is inextricably linked to emotions and situations. We eat because we are bored, because we are sad, because we are happy. If we want to celebrate, we go out to eat. When we grieve over a romantic breakup, we drown our feelings in ice. When someone is sick or someone dies, food becomes the way we show our grief and support - large quantities of casseroles, cakes and salads.

I'm not saying this is all bad. While food has inherent limitations in satisfying our emotional needs, an emotional connection with food is part of a normal and healthy relationship with food. Food can and should bring us joy and comfort. Just think about the associations that certain foods and flavors evoke for you: the feeling of “home” you feel when you smell cinnamon and vanilla; the feeling of security that a dinner of meatloaf and mashed potatoes can provide; the feeling of longing you get when your sister makes your grandmother's famous broccoli casserole at Thanksgiving. On rainy Sundays, a cup of hot cocoa is a wonderful accompaniment to reading the newspaper, while the ritual of a celebratory cake adds meaning to birthdays.

But too many of us have come to view food as a blanket for our feelings, numbing them as we turn to food to provide the love and comfort we crave. Food is reward, friend, love and support. We eat not because we are hungry, but because we are sad, guilty, bored, frustrated, lonely or angry. In doing so, we ignore these internal, hard-wired hunger and fullness signals. And because there is no way for food to truly appeal to our emotions, we eat and eat and eat, but never feel satisfied.

Unfortunately, most of us are stuck at this point. We recognize the short-term comfort or pleasure we get from food, and without other skills to take care of ourselves, we rely on it to feel better immediately. Then we get stuck in a downward spiral: eating to feel better doesn't help us feel better in the long run; Instead, it adds guilt and anger about our eating habits and their impact on our weight. In fact, even though you may get immediate emotional comfort from eating, studies show that the guilt associated with it overwhelms any emotional support you receive.

What too few of us understand is that food doesn't fix feelings. It may comfort us or distract us from our pain in the short term, but in the long term it only exacerbates our problems and prevents us from making significant changes that could lead to greater fulfillment and a healthier life.

This means that if you feel driven to eat for emotional reasons, you don't have an eating problem. Nope. You have a problem with care. You're not taking proper care of yourself. I know this to be true because I was once an emotional eater. I ate because I wanted something, but something wasn't food. Food kept me from feeling lonely, got me through tough times and, unlike people, was always there for me.

But then my obsession with weight surfaced. And suddenly the food didn't work anymore. Instead of long-term comfort, I would receive a short-term solution, followed by more intense and longer-lasting guilt. The more weight I gained, the more evidence I saw of my mistakes. The more I felt like a failure, the more I ate. And so on and so forth.

Where did this thinking come from? From the way we were raised.

I remember shortly after my son was born. When he was hungry, he cried. He nursed until he was full and then fell asleep full. Only when his stomach emptied again - usually in a few hours - did he cry for food again. He was in perfect contact with his hunger/fullness signals.

But as he got older and transitioned to solid foods, things changed. Not in how he approached food, but in how we (my mother) taught him to look at food. I remember a time when Isaac was one year old and my mother was feeding him stretched carrots. He happily ate a few spoonfuls and then stopped opening his mouth. The message was clear: “No more!”

But my mother ignored the message. “Come on, Isaac,” she cooed, “just a few more bites.” She held the spoon enticingly in front of his mouth. When that didn't work, she pressed it against his lips. Still no luck. So she became more creative. “Here comes the plane in the hangar,” she said, playfully waving her fork near his mouth, trying to capitalize on his fascination with airplanes. “Open the hangar, Isaac.”

He wouldn't have any of it. Isaac was full and no longer interested in food. He was a smart boy and knew what he needed. My mother essentially told him that he was not a trustworthy judge - that she, not him, knew how to manage his food intake. It was then that I understood where it all began for me!

But I don't blame my mother. My mother didn't intentionally try to do this; She just unconsciously transferred eating habits that are anchored in our culture. If Isaac (and I) didn't get them from her, we would certainly get them from somewhere else.

Our culture teaches us that there are appropriate times and places for food, most of which have nothing to do with feelings of hunger and fullness in our bodies. Think about the messages we receive: “I went to the trouble of cooking and you won’t even eat?” "You can't be hungry. You just ate dinner!" “It’s not time to eat.” “Clean your plate, children are starving in India.” "You got an A? Let's bake some cookies to celebrate." "Poor thing, you fell off your bike? Will some ice help make it better?"

So these external cues determine what we eat for a large part of our lives. As a result, we no longer listen to our internal cues of hunger and fullness. Instead, we eat because we think we should; to stuff feelings we don’t want to have; to mark important moments in our lives; To fill a gap, we can't even clarify.

After years of turning to food for non-physical reasons, our ability to sense these internal signals has weakened, like the leg muscles in someone bedridden. Then, when we find ourselves gaining weight, we try to force our own will to eat less over our appetite.

Scientists have a term for it. “Restrained eaters” are people who regulate their eating through external influences, often to control their weight. Conversely, “unbridled eaters” are those who still rely on internal body cues to determine when and how much to eat.

Extensive research suggests that restrained eaters are much less sensitive to hunger and satiety than unrestrained eaters.25 In other words, it takes more food deprivation to make them hungry and larger amounts of food to feel full than unrestrained eaters.

Inspired by Linda Bacon