“I find myself in front of the refrigerator every time I feel bored. What could happen if I ate another chocolate when I was unhappy? "No matter how much I eat, I can't get enough." Do sentences like these sound familiar to you? So let's take a look at emotional eating together.
Sometimes you may find yourself eating junk food when you are sad, angry, stressed or unhappy. Eating something sweet after a boring day can make you feel better. Emotions and eating behavior are in a two-way interaction that affects each other. Just like thoughts, emotions are an important part of our lives. They are also a form of expressing ourselves. They accompany us at every moment of our lives and have more or less influence on the choices we make.
What is Emotional (Intuitive) Eating?
What we also call emotional or intuitive Eating is the desire to overeat or a change in food consumption, often as a response to a negative emotion. People with emotional eating habits try to cope with the negative emotions they experience (such as anger, shame, stress, unhappiness) by eating. Since emotional eating gives individuals a temporary feeling of relief, individuals may feel that they are moving away from the emotions they are trying to escape from during these moments.
In emotional eating behavior, the way people interpret what happens in their daily lives and whether their basic needs in their past, such as being loved and feeling valued, are met or not are important factors. It takes up space. According to Erickson, as a result of meeting needs such as being loved, valued, accepted and approved in childhood, the human mind stores these experiences as resources that can be used later and chooses functional solutions to negative life events. Individuals such as these, whose emotional food resources are incomplete, may choose to snack more in order to cope with some of their negative experiences. This can also be interpreted as an effort to fill the emotional void within a person. At the same time, emotional eating can become a habit as a result of learning behavior. There are also studies showing this.
Emotional and Physical Eating i Distinguishing
Nutrition is the action taken to meet the physical needs of the body and the purpose is to get energy. Recognizing this physical need and recognizing physical hunger is very important to prevent emotional eating. Emotional eaters cannot distinguish their physical hunger from emotional hunger.
Foods preferred during emotional hunger are generally sugary, high-calorie and fatty. Emotional hunger occurs with an excessive desire for a particular food that contains these. It is sudden and not actually a real need. It disappears when postponed or not fulfilled. In the case of physical hunger, there is a real hunger rather than a desire for a specific food. It is the feeling that occurs when you are hungry for 3-4 hours or longer, causing your stomach to growl. It is not sudden, it develops gradually. There is a body that needs to be fed, and it is a real need compared to emotional hunger. If not fulfilled, it causes physical symptoms such as headache and hypoglycemia. So think before you decide to eat something; Is it your body or your emotions that is hungry?
How Can You Overcome Emotional Eating?
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Realization : First, “What are the triggers that push you towards emotional eating? "How do you feel, what kind of situations or events increase your need for emotional eating?" Try to find answers to questions like: Remember, the first step is awareness!
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Self-monitoring: How about starting by keeping an emotional and eating diary? Recording the emotional changes you experience on a daily basis and their reflection on your life will help you see the picture more clearly and objectively. To the registration form; Be sure to write down your feelings, the food you consumed and its amount, and the feelings you experienced after consumption. In this way, you will answer questions such as how much of which food you ate under which emotion you were under and how you felt afterwards, and you will see the reasons for yourself.
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Taking action: To cope with your challenging emotions more effectively and efficiently. Try to produce more permanent alternatives. For example, instead of suppressing negative emotions, You can express them in this way and focus on doing sports instead of turning to the kitchen.
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Replacement: Do not keep high-calorie, ready-made foods with you or near you. Do not pass by pastry shops that attract you or do not add items to your cart that are not on your shopping list.
Getting help: Despite all your efforts, you may have difficulty in achieving a permanent behavioral change. In such a situation, do yourself a favor and do not hesitate to seek help from an expert mental health professional.
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