You may be trying to make yourself feel good by eating crackers when you're angry, snacks when you're stressed, or dessert after a hard day's work. Emotions and eating behavior are in a two-way relationship that affects each other. Emotions are a part of us, they accompany us at every moment and affect our behavior for the most part.
Finding solace in food is one of the most important symptoms of emotional eating. Emotional eating can be briefly explained as the individual's use of eating even though he is not hungry, especially in order to regulate negative emotions. Inability to cope with negative emotions, inadequate stress management, some learned behaviors and malnutrition are among the main reasons why people resort to emotional eating. After this eating behavior, feelings such as shame and guilt usually arise after eating, and as a result, it can cause many physical ailments such as weight problems, cardiovascular diseases, sugar, cholesterol.
If we talk about the things that trigger emotional eating, there are many things. can be sorted. Everything from financial troubles to health problems, from job stress to relationship problems are among the reasons that can trigger this eating behavior. Self-restriction in one's diet can be another important reason for emotional eating. In addition, we may be trying to fill this void by eating involuntarily while grappling with the feelings of loneliness or emptiness caused by living in the age of technology. In other words, negative emotions are among the reasons that push us to emotional eating. Emotional eating can be exhibited by both genders, but as we have observed, studies have also observed that women are more likely to be emotional eaters than men.
Are you one of those emotional eaters too? For this, we can ask ourselves some questions:
- Do I eat more when I'm stressed?
- Do I eat when I'm not hungry or when I'm full?
- Emotionally good Do I eat to feel safe?
- Do I reward myself with food?
- Does food make me feel safe? (comfort foods)
- Do I feel out of control in an environment with food? (Or when entering environments where food is plentiful and varied. Do I know?)
If your answers to these questions are mostly yes, you may be an emotional eater too.
The table below will help you differentiate between physical and emotional eating.
PHYSICAL HUMANITY
- Occurs over time
- Desirable of various food groups
- Toughness and gives a clue as to when to finish eating
- Having negative emotions about eating
EMOTIONAL HUMANITY
- Occurs out of nowhere
- Desires a particular food
- No feeling of fullness despite overeating
- Feelings shame and guilt about food
Expert support is very important to control emotional eating. Expert support can be considered to raise awareness on eating behavior. At the same time, distinguishing between physical need eating and emotional eating, doing more physical activity and taking up new hobbies are important steps to stop emotional eating.
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