Emotional Eating is no longer a new concept. It is something that has become a buzzword in many people's vocabulary. The media reflects the way food has become an accepted coping mechanism for almost every situation.
Kung Fu Panda eats because he is not living his dream. Samantha Jones in the film Sex and the City eats so she doesn't cheat on her boyfriend. And watching Oprah's body shrink and expand over the years has become a way to monitor her level of overwhelm or upset.
We are a stressed-out society and food makes us feel better. It's that simple.
Food is legal and readily available. Eating to alleviate stress is even encouraged by friends, family and the media. Stores, fast-food chains and restaurants keep developing new kinds of sugar- and fat-laden foods that are effective in numbing our bodies and minds.
The ever-growing obesity rate reflects that people are turning to this tried-and-true coping mechanism more and more often. The underlying reason is because we are in pain. We are depressed, anxious and upset. Food has been installed as a drug of choice because essentially it works. It soothes, puts a person in a trance and keeps people where they want to be - as far away from feelings as possible.
If comfort eating is so common, what's the problem?
1. The most obvious problem is obesity.
It's normal to reach for the comfort of food sometimes. Everyone does it. However, when a person uses food to deal with feelings they often find themselves becoming increasingly afraid to feel and that leads to reaching for food more frequently.
One Shrink Yourself member told us, "I used to eat when I was bored but now it seems like every feeling is an excuse to eat - anger, loneliness, happiness, exhaustion, all of them."
If you eat to calm your nerves one out of 20 times it doesn't generally affect your weight. But when you reach for food 20 out of 20 times your weight will inevitably begin to rise. If food has worked for you in the past, your mind will keep offering it up as an option and that leads to the next danger...
2. Emotional Eating doesn't teach you the necessary skills to tackle life's challenges.
If your mind keeps offering food as a way to cope and you keep taking your mind up on the offer, you're never forced to find real ways to deal with real problems. Your development gets stuck in the place where food became your "friend."
One member mourned the loss of decades by saying, "I started to eat for emotional reasons when I was eight. Now I'm 38 and I feel like I never learned how be an adult. Food was just something to focus on while my development was on hold."
The more you use food, the less you believe you can handle life without it.
The last danger of Emotional Eating is...
3. Depression triggers Emotional Eating but Emotional Eating perpetuates depression.
Many people tell us that the hopeless feelings associated with depression make them feel like food is the only pleasure they have.
A Shrink Yourself reader wrote us to say, "For years I convinced myself that food was the only thing I had to live for. I kept eating. One day I decided I wanted to get better, not bigger."
As we said before Emotional Eating feeds off itself - the more you use it, the more you need it. This not only makes you gain weight but also stops you from developing the skills you need... skills that would make you approach life from an empowered way that is sure to lift your spirit.
The answer always lies in understanding why you eat. When you can see which people, feelings and situations lead you to the comfort of food you can begin to pick up where you stopped learning and started eating.
Facing things head-on not only makes you less dependent on food but also gives you the tools you need to build the best life.
Dr. Roger Gould is one of the world's leading authorities on emotional eating and adult development. A board-certified psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and former head of Community Psychiatry and Outpatient Psychiatry at UCLA, he is the author of Transformations and Shrink Yourself. Dr. Gould is also founder of the Shrink Yourself online program, an effective, proven program that ends emotional eating.
Dr. Gould has a book and an online 12-week program for self-enlightenment.
Shrink Yourself website
Here is a copy of his e-book to give readers a flavor of what his program is about.
http://www.shrinkyourself.com/get_ebook.asp?email=
The path of self-enlightenment has been so very enriching for me over the years; to my friends and to those who comfort themselves with food, this is another excellent resource available on that path. Namaste.
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