What is your usual response when you are upset? Or when you’re angry? What is your blow off steam when you are overwhelmed by distressing emotions? Do you sulk? Do you have tantrums? Do you exercise? Sleep or talk it out with a friend? Or do you immediately drift to the fridge? Does food make you feel better when you are emotionally distressed? If so, you may be
. By emotional eating, it means you fill your emotional need with food. People in general are emotional beings. When we eat, it is usually a response to an emotional trigger.
Don’t we eat when we celebrate and are happy? Do we not indulge in good food on special occasions? Emotional ingredients are often present in our eating habits. But such emotional factors are aggravated in eating disorders. Emotional eating is of varied degrees. One’s experiences which have lead to their make up contribute so much to emotional eating. We all know that there is a significant amount of psychological irregularities with eating disorders. And eating disorders are no less than severe cases of emotional eating. We have been conditioned by our families and the media about food. Food by all means is associated with feeling good.
But in considering emotional eating, it is a different matter. When
, one uses food to compensate for an emotional void. Emotional eating is when one eats when they are emotionally hungry. Emotional eating, when it becomes chronic can lead to compulsive eating. And compulsive eating is no other than binge eating. And binge eating is an eating disorder. That is the thin line between emotional eating and eating disorders. In its most simple sense, eating disorders are an aggravated case of emotional eating. People who are heavy emotional eaters have predominant characteristics. For one thing, they eat a lot of food and they eat them fast.
When one is a severe emotional eater, they feel out of control when it comes to food. A serious emotional eater obsesses about food. So what is the real score behind emotional eating? Heavy emotional eaters and those suffering from eating disorders often have had past traumatic experiences. Some of these experiences can be physical or sexual abuse to name a few. Research has shown that those suffering from eating disorders and are severe emotional eaters may have had experienced some form of abuse. This may be worth taking note of. So when you know somebody who keeps food around the house or eats in hiding, be keen.
Or when someone regularly slips into the kitchen when everyone else is asleep. Take note if they are emotional eating in a normal sense or if it is to the extent of an eating disorder. Emotional eating may happen to us from time to time. But one should be cautious when they or somebody they know is heavily
. They can be suffering from an eating disorder and are in dire need of professional help. Help should then be rendered as an eating disorder is no laughing matter.
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