So you think that you comfort eat and it’s a bit of a problem – stops you losing the weight that you just can’t shift. But when does this ‘comfort eating’ become a problem and what is it really all about?
Well comfort eating or emotional eating, and this is my personal view, encompasses a whole range of problems that people have with food and can be a fairly innocuous nibble of a biscuit when you’re feeling a bit tired to constantly nibbling away when you’re feeling anxious and even wholehearted binges when your self-esteem has been knocked down another peg, possibly even followed by purging.
We all comfort eat to some extent, we are all emotional eaters. Anyone who says that they don’t eat for emotional reasons is self-deluded. It’s just that for some of us, emotional eating can make us overweight and, in its most sinister form, very ill.
We’re programmed from birth to experience food as comforting but in some of us this need for food becomes a way of assuaging feelings of emotional discomfort and can become a real issue. The problem is that turning to food can never really give you relief from your problems, it only masks them, and unfortunately it can in turn lead to an increased dependence on using food for comfort! Eating food for comfort becomes a vicious circle both emotionally and physically.
Emotional eating takes on different forms for different people but perhaps you recognise some of the ways that people think about their emotional eating problem:
- “I feel out of control with food”
- “I’m addicted to chocolate/biscuits”
- “Even when I’ve had enough I can’t stop eating”
- “I eat huge amounts of food in a short space of time”
- “I eat whether I’m sad/lonely/angry even when I’m not hungry”
- “I constantly pick and nibble at food”
- “I go backwards and forwards to the cupboards/fridge nibbling food”
- “I’m always on a diet”
- “I get cravings for food”
- “If I eat one I have to eat them all”
Comfort Eating Can Be a Real Problem
Some of the forms of comfort eating in its more extreme form are:
Compulsive eating
Nibbling, picking, going backwards and forwards to the fridge but never feeling satisfied; even having just one chocolate bar too many but feeling guilty and worried about food. Compulsive eaters may say “I am not sure I have an eating disorder, perhaps I am just greedy” but they need just as much help as everyone else who struggles with control of food.
Binge Eating
This involves repeated episodes of uncontrolled overeating large amounts of food, often in secret, which are not accompanied by purging but which lead to a great deal of shame and guilt. People may binge on any kind of food or specific foods like chocolate, biscuits or cereal. Binge eating feels for many people as if they have been “taken over” by someone else.
Bulimia Nervosa
Bulimia Nervosa is condition in people of normal or excess weight where there is recurrent binge or overeating followed by harmful and dangerous weight control practices to prevent weight gain. These practices include using laxatives or diuretics, vomiting, detoxing, slimming pills and excessive exercise. There is also an over-preoccupation with and concern about body weight and shape.
The good news is that even these more extreme forms of comfort eating can be treated successfully with the right knowledge and support.
Related posts: