Nutrition is a vital necessity for humans as well as for all living things. Because only through nutrition, the human body provides most of the energy it will spend during the day, and as a result, it maintains its vital functions. It also satisfies the body's need for pleasure. Satisfying this need with nutrition ensures that nutrition continues in an enjoyable way for people. Although it is perfectly normal to desire the pleasurable part of nutrition, sometimes this situation can prevent one's need to meet the basic needs for satiety. It can lead to disruption of a person's daily routines and health. The situation observed in this process is mostly related to emotional needs.
If you think that you are eating to meet your emotional needs rather than physical hunger, you may be doing emotional eating.
If you realize that this condition, which is also termed as emotional eating disorder in the article you have read so far, has started in your life, it will be useful for you to read the rest of our article.
What is Emotional Eating Disorder?
Emotional eating disorder; It is a way of eating that people use to suppress their intense emotions and meet their emotional needs. When it comes to emotional eating, emotions that people have difficulty in coping with are predominantly felt rather than hunger. For this reason, eating behavior is carried out without feeling any physical hunger.
What is the Difference Between Physical Hunger and Emotional Eating Desire?
The feeling of physical hunger is felt gradually and a feeling of fullness occurs after eating. In emotional eating, on the other hand, a sudden desire to eat is felt without a feeling of hunger, and there is no feeling of fullness after the meal.
While many meals are perceived as appetizing in physical hunger, emotional eating behavior is more common. k plenty of sugar, salty, spicy foods are preferred. While under the influence of emotional eating urge, fast foods, harmful packaged foods and foods containing intense flavors are preferred. Since these products are consumed and eaten quickly, the taste of the food and the moment of eating cannot be noticed by the person. then such negative feelings do not occur.
As a result, physical hunger is more about the stomach, while emotional hunger is about the brain.
Emotional hunger How Can I Notice That I Have Eating Behaviors?
The emotional eating behaviors we do to satisfy our spiritual hunger and the physical eating behaviors we do to satisfy our stomach are different from each other.
If you eat your meals very quickly and do not feel full easily, your feeling of hunger comes very suddenly and if you cannot cope with this feeling and turn to harmful foods in general, if you are not aware of the moments you eat, how often you snack, you feel intensely after the meal you eat. If you are experiencing feelings of guilt and regret and these situations occur frequently, you may be experiencing emotional eating disorder. It should not be caused by resistance or a different physical ailment in the body. Again, it is an important distinguishing criterion that you do not experience this condition due to various drugs or supplements. If there are no disorders that will reveal eating disorders, then we can say that the situation you are experiencing is of psychological origin.
What Causes Emotional Eating Disorder?
In daily life, people have to cope with many emotional states. Sometimes these feelings are easier to deal with, and sometimes this feeling is easier. Dealing with these feelings becomes a very intense and challenging situation.
While these feelings may be those that bother people and that they have difficulty in coping with, they can also be enjoyable feelings such as happiness and excitement. . In fact, the main point here is not knowing how to deal with intense emotions in a healthy way.
The reasons that may be effective in the formation of emotional eating disorder as a result of difficulties in coping with emotions are as follows: p>
-Lack of knowledge and less experiential experience in coping with intense emotions in a healthy way,
- The belief that some emotions should be suppressed without being spoken for various reasons,< br /> -Insufficient social support,
-Avoiding situations,
-Difficulty in sharing feelings,
- Difficulty in transforming leisure time into a quality time period,
-Eating behavior and the pleasure of tastes are seen as a solution to suppress emotions
-Rewarding the eating behavior in various ways by the family and the environment,
-Integrating eating with positive emotions,
-Stressful living conditions.
What are the Symptoms of Emotional Eating Disorder?
Emotional eating disorder gives many signs that people can observe in their daily life.
You can have an idea about this by carefully observing your own eating habits whether you have the symptoms mentioned below.
You can have an emotional eating disorder. situations are:
-Anxiety, fear, worry, shame, anger etc. Relaxing by eating after feelings,
-Filling free time by eating,
- Turning to harmful foods in stressful times,
-Rewarding oneself with unhealthy foods in intense happiness and excitement,
-Eating with the influence of the social environment, despite not feeling hungry,
-Normalizing binge eating as a result of not feeling full,
-Not being fully satisfied after eating
-Feeling intense regret after meals
-Not being able to control oneself when it comes to eating.
How to Prevent Emotional Eating Attacks strong>
The first step to prevent emotional eating attacks is to recognize eating patterns and distinguish between them. In this way, by observing their emotional, intellectual and behavioral symptoms, people can realize when they adopt a diet for physical hunger and when they are trying to satisfy a hunger for emotional needs.
Intense stress. and anxious situations, it is necessary to investigate what can be done other than eating in order to maintain psychological resilience against these experiences and regulate emotions within the available possibilities. Here, it is important to pay attention to whether other behaviors chosen as alternatives besides eating are healthy.
For example, smoking more in order not to eat does not improve emotional eating behavior, but also increases nicotine addiction. It may come across as another problem.
For this reason, the role of other behaviors that replace emotional eating behavior in one's life is very important.
Emotional eating behavior is very important. Keeping reminders and notes that raise awareness about eating in places where meals are eaten can provide a motivation-enhancing effect in managing eating disorders. In this way, emotional eating attacks can be prevented by taking personal precautions before eating attacks occur. Thus, it becomes possible to create emergency plans for these attacks.
When it is felt that eating attacks will occur, these emergency plans include calling a loved and trusted friend who can suppress the pleasure of eating by taking social pleasure. drinking lots of water and walking
As a result of complying with these recommendations, daily life routines will be reinforced in healthier cycles, and eating times and eating styles will change from emotional eating to physical satisfaction. begins to change
How Does Emotional Eating Disorder Pass?
The advice given above for the prevention of emotional eating attacks helps people for a while. However, emotional eating disorder often takes on a complex structure as it is formed and maintained for many different reasons. .
In addition to the visible faces of the causes, situations such as childhood experiences, traumas, learned and stereotyped behavior patterns, lack of knowledge and experience in problem solving also play an important role on emotional eating behaviors. It is known.
From this point of view, emotional eating disorder is actually an issue that needs to be handled sensitively.
Also, analyzing previous eating attacks If various attempts have been made on behalf of the person and this process has not resulted in a positive result, the feeling of failure and helplessness that the person feels about this situation may also complicate the process. Considering all these reasons, the problem experienced is extremely personal.
In this respect, it is not the right approach to give a solution like a prescription for the elimination of emotional eating disorder.
By looking at the background of the emotional need for eating, it should be tried to understand exactly which situation this eating style is a means of coping with.
After understanding what these emotional needs are, It is absolutely necessary to seek answers to the questions about how this behavior pattern regarding eating disorder emerges, how it becomes so stereotyped, and how this behavior is chronically maintained.
