Emotional overeating: what is it and how to deal with it?
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
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We need food in order to live, but some people make a habit out of eating or simply "jam" their emotions. Sometimes it's a great delay and the person no longer notices how he fights with anxiety, sadness or boredom by absorbing food, sometimes without even knowing the taste of what he chews.
Such binge attacks are called emotional overeating and are a way of dealing with stress, anxiety or some other mental state of a person. From this trap it's so easy to get out, because food becomes a kind of pill for the person, which drowns out the negative emotions that he feels.
Read also: Ways to regulate appetite
Why do people become emotional eaters and how can this threaten? Ilive offers to understand together.
Fear of not getting enough
Some emotional eaters have almost a phobia that makes them absorb food, a phobia of eating little and while it is there is need to use it. No, these people did not survive the hunger strike and do not dry crackers under the mattress. They simply can not control their appetite and satiety.
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Psychological pressure
Many emotional eaters unconsciously protect themselves with food from stronger people psychologically. The fact is that the emotional hunger - unlike the physical, which comes gradually - comes suddenly. This happens if a person experiences strong emotions, which it is difficult for him to cope with. And these emotional outbursts are not necessarily negative - a person can experience joy and fun and at the same time he may strongly want something concrete - pizza, chocolate, ice cream or chips.
Unconscious overeating
This kind of overeating is permanent. A person can eat always and everywhere, but do not realize the extent of his problem. He does not understand how much food he eats per day. In this case, combining such snacks and other activities is dangerous.
Baby tears
In childhood memories can be preserved the image of how my mother calmed crying and childish hysterics with a sweetie or something sweet. This image could well be fixed in the subconscious already in adulthood: grief, stress - tears - food.
Emotional overeating turns a person into a slave, dependent on food. It is like a drug that gives him the opportunity to escape from reality and as a loyal ally helps to cope with emotions. However, with emotional overeating, you can and should fight.
- First, you need to learn to distinguish between physical and emotional hunger. The latter comes to a person even after he recently ate.
- If you want certain products, for example, chocolate, cookies or something salty - it's emotional hunger, but not physical. If a person is really hungry, then he will eat that food that will be served, and will not wait for delicacies.
- If a person eats in order to "score" their emotions, then he will not stop even with full saturation, therefore it is very important to feel the line and stop in time.
- Stress provokes the secretion of the hormone cortisol in the blood, and this process is accompanied by a need for sweet or salty.