Emotional Eating and Overeating

"Many compulsive eaters believe that their hunger would be relieved if they were thin. They think that being thin would make everything alright:that being thin would make them happy. I've worked with many people who refuse to believe that their pain would not disappear if they were thin. Despite the fact that most of them have already been thin once or twice, the tenacity with which they hold onto 'thinness as happiness' prevents them from getting to the root of their hunger ."
                                                                                 -Geneen Roth


Many people eat for reasons other than hunger, at least sometimes. When it becomes a problem is when emotional eating is the sole tool for dealing with life challenges. A lot of us were not given good information as to how to handle certain situations and this is especially true if one or both of your parents was addicted to food, drugs or alcohol.

Usually when people have struggled with overeating they think that it is because they have no willpower. They are not even aware that they are using food to cope with life, just like an alcoholic or a drug user does. I write this article for those people who struggle with being at a healthy weight and wonder why they keep sabotaging themselves when they want to eat normally. 

Here are some of the reasons that may be preventing you from eating healthfully:

• When you are going through a time of stress. Food sedates those who live their lives full of stress and drama. It is very hard to manage weight when your only tool for dealing with stress is by eating.
• You took on the role of a caretaker. Caretakers know exactly what others need and are mostly focused on giving than receiving. They rarely take time for themselves and when they do they feel guilty. It is ironic that they are so good at knowing what others need, but don't know how to take care of themselves other than using food as a supplement for their true needs. Such as getting some more sleep or rest.
• Suppressing childhood trauma. When there are things in our childhood that are too painful to look at, we use food to tranquilize us. Sometimes people minimize their pain from childhood, but it shows up in certain areas of our lives as evidence that we are deeply wounded. One of the ways is by having emotional eating or overeating patterns.
• Some people eat to cope with daily life's hassles. They don't necessarily have deep wounds, but in order to feel content and not so affected by life challenges they overeat.
• Overworked people tend to also overeat or eat when they are not biologically hungry. I know a woman who has her own business. One time I visited her while she was at work and just being there made me feel stressed out. It was late in the afternoon and she still had not had lunch. Actually she did not even have breakfast. She asked me to stay so that I could have lunch with her. I thought we were going somewhere, but she was such a workaholic she did not want to leave the office. The whole time she was getting interrupted and because she was not paying attention to what she was eating she ended up eating too much. She confessed that this was her daily routine not a one time hectic day. I then understood why she had gained so much weight since I had last seen her. I saw her again last month and she was even bigger still.
• Feeling unloved by others and themselves. There are people who feel very lonely and for various reasons have not learned to love themselves or have had difficulty finding love. Mainly because they are afraid to put themselves out there. To these people food is love.
• Sometimes food is used as a gift or reward. It is easier to handle a life challenge when you know you will receive a huge reward in the end. Unfortunately people too often use food as a reward.
• Food can be used to bring some excitement into our lives when life is dull or boring. Not knowing other ways to handle boredom causes people to overeat.
• Unmet needs could also be a reason for emotional eating or overeating. It is quicker and easier to use food to alleviate uncomfortable feelings when your husband or boyfriend is not meeting your needs. It is also less scarier. It does not take courage to eat, but confronting your significant other might be very difficult and require lots of strenght.

These are just some of the reasons we eat that have nothing to do with biological hunger. In case you are beating yourself up for not being able to lose weight see if any of the above resonate with you. You might have a deeper issue than a weight problem. From my experience you can't fix things from the outside (at least not permanently) until you fix what is going on in the inside first.


"Every time you reach for food when you are not hungry, you are getting a signal of need. If you recognize that, you're lucky, you've found a way of getting your own attention. Some people never realize the access they have to their inner selves. Some people become cut off from their bodies and so attuned to everyone else's needs, judgements, and demands that they ignore their own. They learn how to nourish their spouses, children, friends, but they don't take time to learn to feed themselves...The drive to eat compulsively is not an uncontrollable instinct;it's a cry for help."
                                                   
                                                           -Geneen Roth