Emotional Eating Disorder?
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Ah.....What's an Emotional Eating Disorder?
You eat a lot when you're stressed, depressed, bored, upset, anxious, angry......
Honestly, I used to eat like that before. Still do it sometimes.
I automatically reach for food when I'm stressed up, tensed, worried, depressed, upset, distressed, angry, bothered......
I eat heaps especially when I'm rushing for job deadlines, when I'm under tremendous pressure and when I'm bored.
Mind you, I'm not hungry, you understand? It's just that I "feel better" after I've gobbled down chunks of food.
That's the whole problem. Eat lots when my emotions are uptight.
I think we girls call this "emotional eating", not this long term stuff - emotional eating disorder.....
According to researchers, emotional eating has become a common channel to express ourselves since food seems to offer unique ways to relieve our pent-up emotions and feelings.
When you eat food, it distracts you from uncomfortable feelings. It takes the edge off any of your feeling that you would rather not feel or confront.
Say, you're angry and upset.
You think about the chocolate you've in your drawer. You may or may not be conscious of when or why you're thinking of it.....
You reach for the chocolate. Once you focus on the chocolate, you no longer focus on how angry you feel. The chocolate distracts you from the anger and upset......
You do that, right?
I think emotional eating disorder is in every one of us; it's whether a light or a serious one. This is because we believe food is our most "legitimate" reason to live for on this world!
We think nothing of it when we eat due to emotions.
Well, it can be perfectly normal - we always use food to show our happiness and sadness: birthdays, weddings, promotions, parties, funerals.....
But if emotional eating starts to impact on your emotional and/or physical well-being and you use it as your primary weapon to control your mood and emotions, then it becomes a problem.
It impacts your quality of life. At its worst, you may be suffering from eating disorders like anorexia, bulimia or binge eating and also depression.
You need to seek help then. Parents, family members, friends, teachers or a medical professional.
One thing, if you use food to regulate and control your mood and feelings, it'll disappoint you.
Say you just had a fierce quarrel with your body friend. You're very angry and can feel the fumes of anger right in your chest!
You think of food, glorious food. And you find yourself reaching for a bag of potato chips.
You eat the chips and for a while ward off the anger.
Then the anger comes back. Worst, together with the anger now, you've to deal with the guilt or shame you feel eating the chips! To soothe the guilt feeling, you eat even more!
It's a cycle that can trap you. Emotional eating and then more emotional eating!
Emotional eating disorder at its worst!
Try to make a conscious effort to become more aware of how and why you're eating. Don't just eat when your emotions and feelings "take over" you.
I see myself doing just that......I can eat 1 packet of nuts with no qualms at all, when I'm working under tremendous pressure.
So now whenever I reach for food, I'll stop to think: "Hey! What am I doing here? I'm not hungry! I'm just tensed!"
Then I'll take a deep breath, count to 10 and put away the food.
Or I get up and go for a short walk.
Or I read humorous e-mails or listen to iPod.
Or read something interesting.
Of course it's hard in the beginning but as you go along, you get used to it and it becomes easier.
Please don't go on a diet to "stuff down" your guilt and shame because you've eaten chunks of food, out of emotions.
It never works because it makes you eat more, out of frustration and desperation and your emotional eating disorder gets deeper.
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