|
 Emotional
Eating
Are you eating to feed your
feelings?
Many of us are familiar with
eating for comfort or emotional
solace. It is also true that
many of us had mothers and
relatives that supplied entire
meals and treats when we felt
sad, anxious, or depressed. At
an early age, we learned to
congest our stomachs with food
to make our feelings go away. (Seekwellness,
How to Overcome Emotional Eating,
www.seekwellness.com Retrieved
2/5/07).
Sometimes we eat not only to
satisfy physical hunger but when
we have to deal with stress,
depression, boredom, anger,
loneliness, or even hormonal
changes in our life. In general,
our food choices tend to reflect
our emotional estate. Experts
say that about 75 percent of
overeating is caused by
emotional eating. They also tell
us that when people respond to
emotional eating with some
positive thoughts or actions,
they are able to beat temptation
by 50 or 60 percent of the time.
(Psychologist 4 Therapy Network,
Emotional Eating Can Sabotage
Even Your Best Dieting Efforts,
www.4therapy.com
Retrieved 2/5/07).
How do you identify emotional
hunger?
Emotions are part of our human
makeup, in other words,
emotional eating is normal. We
all celebrate birthdays or
farewells with food. But it
becomes a problem if this is
your only strategy to regulate
your mood and if it has a
negative effect on your physical
and mental well being.
If you consume large quantities
of food, usually comfort foods
or junk foods in response to
feelings instead of physical
hunger, then you are probably an
emotional eater. (WebMD, Weight
Loss: Emotional Eating.
www.webmd.com
Retrieved 2/5/07).
Emotional eaters also find
themselves on a constant diet,
don’t lose the weight they want
and are continuously preoccupied
by food. It is a vicious cycle
of eating to dull emotional
discomfort. After not getting
any relief from the binging, and
then having to deal with the
guilt, shame and the extra
weight from the emotional eating
response, many become angry and
seek comfort by overeating.
The chart below describes some
of the reasons for emotional
eating and can help you identify
disconnections between your
dietary needs and your actions.
Eating to appease an emotion
does not take care of your
emotional needs at all! Paying
careful attention to your
emotions, respecting them, and
responding to them in a manner
that doesn’t involve food will
break this learned response.
|
The 12 Types of
Emotional Hunger
|
Type 1.
Dulling The
Pain With The
Food Trance.
If you get
really hungry
when you feel
angry, depressed,
anxious, bored,
or lonely, you
suffer from Type
1 emotional
hunger, and you
use food to dull
the pain that
these emotions
cause.
Type 2.
Sticks And
Stones May Break
Your Bones, But
Cake Won't Heal
What Hurts You.
If you react by
getting hungry
when others talk
down to you,
take advantage
of you, belittle
you or take you
for granted,
then you suffer
from Type 2
emotional hunger.
You eat to avoid
confrontation.
Type 3.
A Full Heart
Fills An Empty
Belly.
If you crave
food when you
have tension in
your close
relationships,
you suffer from
Type 3 emotional
hunger. You eat
to avoid feeling
the pain of
rejection or
anger.
Type 4.
Hate Yourself,
Love Your
Munchies.
If you tend to
become
hypercritical of
yourself, if you
label yourself "stupid,”
"lazy," or "a
loser," you have
Type 4 emotional
hunger. You eat
to "stuff down"
self-hatred.
Type 5.
Secret
Desires Have No
Calories.
If your hunger
gets activated
because your
intimate
relationships
don't satisfy
some basic need
like trust or
security, you
suffer from Type
5 emotional
hunger and you
use food to try
to fill the gap.
Type 6.
Forty Million
Big Gulps And
The Well Is
Still Empty.
If you eat to
make up for the
deprivation you
experienced as a
child, you have
Type 6 Emotional
Eating. |
Type 7.
It's My
Pastry, and I'll
Eat If I Want To.
If you eat to
assert your
independence
because you
don't want
anyone telling
you what to do,
you have Type 7
emotional hunger.
Type 8.
I Can't Come
To Work Today--I'm
Eating
If your appetite
kicks in when
you're faced
with new
challenges--if
you use food to
avoid rising to
the test, or to
insulate
yourself from
the fear of
failure--you
have Type 8
emotional hunger.
Type 9.
Aroused by
Aromas, Not by
the Chef.
If you stuff
your face in
order to avoid
your sexuality-either
to stay
overweight so
that nobody
desires you or
to hide from
intimate
encounters--you
suffer from Type
9 Emotional
Eating.
Type 10.
I'll Beat You
With this Eclair.
Emotional eaters
often eat to pay
back those who
have hurt them,
often in the
distant past.
They use their
bodies as
battlegrounds
for working out
old resentments.
Type 11.
Peter Pan and
the Peanut
Butter Cookie.
If you eat to
make yourself
feel carefree,
like a child,
you have Type 11
emotional hunger.
You eat to keep
yourself from
facing the
challenges of
growing up.
Type 12.
That Stranger
In Lycra Wearing
Your Face.
If you overeat
because you fear
getting thin,
either
consciously or
unconsciously,
you have Type 12
emotional hunger.
Source:
Mastering Food.
“The 12 Types of
Emotional Hunger.”
By Roger Gould,
M.D.
www.masteringfood.com
|
|
next
>
By Ana
Castro |
