Do You Know What Emotional Eating Is?
The wise Ashurbanipa Sardanapalo has already said it, “walker: eat, drink and nothing else matters to you.” While it is true that this phrase can be very useful for almost everyone, there are people for whom it is a problem, and they are those who suffer from emotional eating.
Because it is nothing new to know that what we eat acts directly on our body, but also on our psyche. As hackneyed as it is true is the classic saying “healthy mens and healthy body”. Let’s know more about the subject.
Where does emotional eating come from?
The issue of eating has become so important that many authors and researchers have coined the term emotional eating. What do you mean with this? To those people who do not eat only for need or pleasure, but for a state of mind.
However, the phenomenon of emotional eating has become more serious in recent years with the proliferation of the well-known junk food. Thus, when a person suffers from negative moods, such as frustration or stress, they succumb to the urge to take refuge in the intake of these products.
In documentaries like “Super Size Me” we can see how neglecting food and eating only poor quality products (hamburgers, chocolates, fried foods and hot dogs, etc.) is really harmful to health. In addition, to the physical problems that excess “junk food” entails, we must add the fact that this type of impulsive diet, far from acting as a painkiller in the medium and long term, reinforces anxiety itself.
It is in this way that the person enters a spiral. Each time you need more calories to curb anxiety and each time the anxiolytic effect of food is less and the dissonance it generates is greater. Many times it is the guilt generated by the consumption itself that causes the anxiety to return once the intake is finished.
Eating junk food boosts negative mood
Actually, when we have a treat because we feel sad, down, or depressed, what we are doing is reinforcing this state of mind. Thus, the vicious circle that is created causes a new need to continue eating this type of product. Sometimes it even promotes an irrepressible desire.
This is how, in reality, this type of food causes a deep discomfort in the person. And the most serious thing is that this discomfort occurs at all levels, from the emotional to the cognitive, passing through the physical.
Curiously, it is our cognition that promotes eating more food to try to make the discomfort disappear. So, what it actually causes is that the amount of calories consumed in this way increases, leading to a really serious problem.
The problem is that at mealtime, when you eat pizzas, hamburgers, industrial pastries and other low-quality products with little nutritional value, you only achieve short-term well-being. What’s more, it ends up disappearing shortly, so the discomfort appears again, and even the feeling of guilt, which each time becomes stronger in the patient’s mind.
Counteract discomfort with a good diet
Interestingly, food does have the power to counteract general discomfort. In other words, depression, sadness or depression can be fought with diet. However, it has to be adequate and healthy, such as those that contain foods with a high level of tryptophan.
Junk food, however, has the opposite effect. In addition, it incorporates an excess of fats and sugars increase our weight and make the feeling of tiredness recur. And what does this situation lead us to? To do a lesser amount of exercise, which in turn will further deteriorate our physical condition. A physical state that is usually a strong determinant of our self-esteem, for example.
When this negative emotional feeding reaches very high levels, the person has to be treated psychologically. In most cases it ends up being the only way to normalize eating behavior.
Thus, a person who suffers with emotional eating needs to correct his negative mood. But you also need to restructure your meal schedules, identify what’s causing you discomfort and down the junk food path, and obviously fix these issues.
Finally, and this is perhaps most important, you must learn and integrate alternative tools into your routine to help calm your anxiety. Useful tools in the medium and long term and that do not go against your health, both physical and psychological.
In any case, the use of common sense is very useful in these cases. There is nothing wrong with eating this type of low-nutritious and high-calorie food with a low frequency. The problem appears when the intake occurs with the aim of reducing anxiety: this is the time when consulting with a professional is going to be a good idea. For us, for our health.
