Eating should really have nothing to do with emotional states. That is, eating should be about satisfying physical needs, rather than emotional ones.
And yet eating was originally, in infancy always associated with relief from distress, witness the crying baby immediately calming down as it begins to breastfeed. Thus, in fact, eating has always been closely associated with emotional as well as physical comfort.
It is therefore not surprising that eating continues to have a strong relationship with emotions into adulthood. Many adults report strong effects of emotions on overeating, including negative (anxiety, anger, depression), positive (celebration, relaxation, happy), and low energy (bored, insomniac, tired) emotions.
Individuals with high levels of emotional eating have feelings of loss of control over their eating, and their weight. Thus emotional eating decreases significantly over time among people who show improvement in weight management.
Getting emotional eating under control involves learning to associate eating with simple relaxation, not with stress or emotional coping. Individual or group therapy can help with overcoming emotional eating.
Enjoy simple pleasures!
Stephen Stotland, Ph.D.
My favorite comment is the last comment of enjoying simple pleasures.
ReplyDeleteThere is a perception among some people that when you say that the purpose of eating is solely to meet physical needs that that means that they cannot enjoy it because meeting physical needs seems, well... so "physical" and non pleasurable. From my perspective, the key is for, as you put it, to "enjoy the simple pleasure" of eating to meet our physcial & nutritional needs in awareness. And yes, that involves relaxation and a mindfulness of being in the moment and savouring the whole eating experience, nutrition and all!
Eating to meet our nutritional and energy needs and enjoying the process can certainly go hand in hand without it being an emotional eating mechanism.
BLT