Emotional Eating
Emotional Eating
This week’s article is interactive, in the sense that it is designed to have you think about your eating habits and come to a conclusion, founded on self-reflection.
Emotional eating has many components to it and I have to admit (being honest), that on occasion I have found myself heading to the refrigerator in search of a snack that will distract me or give me a taste pleasure because I am bored. Now, there is no problem in having a snack from time to time but, what impact will it have on our health and what is the underlying psyche driving this action (why am I doing this)? And what impact could it have, long-term on my overall health if left unchecked?
In order to get to the bottom of this, we need to do a little digging. Let’s begin with a quick set of questions for self-analysis:
When you are stressed, do you eat more?
Do you eat to pacify emotions such as anxiety, frustration, sadness, or boredom?
Does food represent a reward?
Do you eat when you are not hungry?
Do you feel out of control with your food consumption?
Does eating help you feel safe?
If you answered Yes or Possibly to some or all of these, then it may be worth exploring a little further.
Emotional eating is one of several eating patterns that may not be healthy for you in the long term. If left unchecked, it may contribute to excessive weight gain and poor lifestyle habits. As outlined above, one can identify that emotional eating, is eating when you are not physically hungry and attempting to regain some control in your emotional life.
Sometimes this can be hard to distinguish as it may be subtle and let’s face it, a little snack here and there is not an issue. What we are talking about is the repetitive nature that emotional eating can evolve into and the poor health outcomes associated with it if it pervades your life for a prolonged amount of time.
Triggers
There appear to be six triggers that may lead to emotional eating and understanding them will empower you to analyze your own behaviours to determine if you need to make behaviour modifications.
Avoiding unpleasant emotions
To end boredom
Habit/lack of awareness
To curb urgency
Fatigue
For pleasure
Take a moment to reflect on this. Do any of these resonate with you? And if so, keeping a mental note on when you are eating and what you are experiencing and feeling may shed light on this. Acknowledging patterns and behaviours is essential for us to adopt changes. Once we see our patterns, accept them to be so, the next step is being mindful about creating change.
Behaviour Replacement
Often, a reasonable approach adopted in creating change is replacing old behaviours with new, healthier behaviours/activities. Let’s run through some suggestions that may help you change your behaviours if you are experiencing the above scenarios/triggers. Dr Karyn Hall, PhD has the following recommendations
Avoiding Unpleasant Emotions
Coping Suggestions - Practice tolerating the emotion. Emotions will pass. They are temporary. You can also practice other coping skills, such a talking it out with someone, writing your emotions, exercising, or distracting yourself. You might want to do an activity that is not compatible with eating such as taking a shower.
To End Boredom
Coping Suggestions - Create a list of various activities that you can do when you can’t think of anything to do. Keep the list readily available so you can look at it easily. Make a commitment to try at least two activities before turning to food.
Habit/Lack of Awareness
Coping Suggestions - Practice mindfulness to be more present. You may find that you don’t enjoy your routines and need to change them. Perhaps you find that you need a different way to completely slow your mind and relax, so you aren’t thinking about challenges and to-do lists.
To Curb Urgency
Coping Suggestions - Practice delay. Tell yourself that you can have the pie tomorrow or in a few hours. Remind yourself that the pie will be good later. The idea is to learn that having urges for something doesn’t mean you have to act on them and learning to delay is a skill.
Fatigue
Coping Suggestions - When you are tired, awareness can help you make a more effective choice. You might take a nap, go for a walk, or play a game. Doing an activity very different from the one that led to the fatigue often offers the best relief.
For Pleasure
Coping Suggestions - Practice being openly joyful when you have celebrations. When you express the emotion directly and openly you may have less need to create a physical experience of pleasure with food. If food is your only pleasure, then find ways to bring small joys into your life. Joys that use the senses may be the most helpful, like petting a dog.
Long Term Health Impacts of Emotional Eating
As we may be aware, consuming more calories than we can burn on a daily basis leads to a surplus of energy stored as fat adding to our waistline and the scales. If this pattern is chronic, we increase our risk of developing serious conditions such as cardiovascular disease, arthritis, metabolic disorders, and the list goes on.
Take your time - when you do eat, eat to enjoy it and focus on the taste and texture and maybe set a quick checkpoint prior - ask yourself ‘Am I so hungry I would eat a carrot?’ If you answer, Yes, then go ahead, and eat that carrot or healthy meal.
If you feel you need professional help with your eating habits, there are organizations that can help you navigate a path through this tricky field. Reach out to them or your family physician and they will assist you as best they can.