Emotional eating is when food consumption happens because of disappointments, stress, anxiety, depression, boredom, loneliness, or anger. In most television love stories, producers have the character eat a big box of ice cream after being dump. Eating to cope with unwanted emotions has become the norm for many cultures. Mothers find themselves giving their babies the bottle or cookie to help them stop crying, although they are aware they are not hungry. Most women and men have their stash of goodies in a place, ready for them to sit back and relax as they enjoy every bite. It's a sweet/salty "love" they want to last forever. However, most feel overwhelmed, or guilt after they eat a box of cookies, bags of chips, or whatever food they like to eat to fulfill their "cravings."
People in the medical/mental health field call it Emotional Eating Disorders. Please don't start going around diagnosing people with this disorder because they are overweight after reading this blog. There are several reasons why a person could weigh more pounds than another person, which is another blog for a medical doctor. So before we start believing we are emotional eaters, find out if we have a deficiency in our diet and need supplements or have medical issues that increase weight. Most doctors can run labs and tell you what you lack the same day. If we don't have any medical issues, it's time to identify our emotional triggers. Yes we can start exercising, starve our self for a few days or years and loose weight, but if we don't address our emotional triggers we will pass those feelings onto something else in our life. We just become a different type of addict in other words, which usually prompt anxiety, anger, or depression for most people .
Not only do we need to learn our emotional triggers, we need to learn how to cope with those negative emotions. The best time to learn how to cope is from the ages 2 to 18 years old. The problem with this is some parents were never taught how to cope with life transitions or painful moments. These parents end up not teaching their children the tools to handle what they are feeling. Most of the time the children mimic their parents, so we end up with generations of people not knowing how to cope in ways that promote health. Some try to use religion or get involve in a lot of projects to help other people while suffering on the inside. Yes, we feel better during the process, but we refuse to spend time alone and face what we are really feeling or we find a place to isolate ourselves and think about how we are victims. Focusing on the most negative things we can think upon to remain depressed for days, weeks, or months. Please don't be deceived and think because we know information about a subject matter we are spiritually or emotionally strong. Most of the time people who are strong spiritually, are either emotionally and/or mentally sick. You ever wonder how a strong, spiritual person find themselves in divorces (3 or more), drink/shop obsessively, low tolerance for others, image driven, jealousy, can't stop cheating, attractive to the same type of negative people, etc? Most have mental/emotional disorders and refuse to recognize it, nor expose it so God can show them how to be delivered, and get the help they really need by trained professionals. However, majority in this state love people, love God, trust God, have faith, and intelligent, but prideful and lack knowledge.
There are many ways to learn our emotional triggers and tools to cope with life. Many have gained great results with experienced therapists. Speak with your mental health provider to learn how because it's not going to happen overnight for most or just by reading someone's blog.
Written by Nancia Leath, MA, LPC, NCC (Licensed Professional Mental Health Therapist) Author of Emancipate In Your Chair
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