Here, again, we face the issues of those pesky, hard to manage human emotions that keep getting us into trouble. Addictions are very easy to develop. Individuals can become addicted to any activity that brings sensory pleasure or draws attention away from negative emotions avoided or burried. These could be anything: smoking, watching TV, surfing the web, watching pornography, exercising, talking on the phone, reading, knitting, and of course, eating.
Food helps alleviate boredom, anxiety, depression, feelings of emptiness, and loneliness. Eating calms and soothes. It takes the mind off of life’s problems by inundating our senses with lots of stimulation. We can feel the texture of the crunchy chip as we bite into it and chew it while its saltiness and oil takes us to a state of delight. Once we reach that point, we are no different than a smoker that takes a long drag of a cigarette and exhales. Pleasure overcomes us, and we don’t have to think about the late fees, the failed relationships, the company parties.
Food addiction engages the powerful sense of taste, and the ritual of food acquisition/preparation. Eating till full can cause a sense of heaviness and fullness that is calming. Foods that are high in fats are particularly addictive by nature. A new study on foods with high fat content reveals that certain chemical differences in obese rats cause compulsive eating to occur of high fat, high calorie foods. This study might indicate that fast food could be as addictive as any drug. Please read the study for more: www.Nature.com
Many blame manufacturers of such foods for compulsive overeating and obesity in the general population. While it might be true that unhealthy and addictive foods are overly accessible, cheap and only a convenient store trip away, this is only one side of the coin. It’s easy to blame others for our actions. This takes the responsibility off of us so we can continue to indulge our impulses without feeling guilty. Ultimately we have the freedom to make our own choices, given we are educated on what types of foods are bad for us and which are good.
Just as with any other addiction, it takes discipline and a strong desire to quit the behavior of overeating. In my practice I have found that unfortunately, desire to quit does not always translate into motivation to quit. Many sufferers of Depression have very low self-esteem, and high levels of self-hatred. They believe they are not capable of stopping, that it is too hard for them. I have observed that deep down; many believe that they don’t deserve happiness, or can’t fathom it. Individuals that lack social skills and isolate have few sources of pleasure in their lives, and food becomes a substitute for human interaction. Sufferers of rape or childhood sexual abuse may have a subconscious motivation to stay overweight, so that they do not have to be looked at by others, and wear their weight around them as a protective shield against predators.
If food addiction is a problem for you, and you have acknowledged this, the first step is to develop an understanding of what your underlying motivations are. If you have tried time and again to go on diets but have been unsuccessful, it is time to examine why you are having difficulty breaking the pattern of overeating. Failed diets often perpetuate the problem of food addiction because they further hurt self-esteem and increase feelings of depression. This starts the overeating cycle over again and fuels its fire.
In conclusion, a combination of lifestyle changes are necessary for the treatment of over eating, and binging. To name a few:
- Increase in social interaction and support
- seeking psychotherapy to address issues that maintain the over eating cycle.
- Increase in active hobbies such as hiking, dancing, running, yoga etc…
- Increase in hobbies, crafts, or purpose driven work=decrease in boredom and idle time.
- Increase in education about healthy foods (what to buy)
- Cooking healthy recipes
- Increase in knowledge of affordable sources of healthy food (where to shop).
- Improved coping skills for anxiety and sadness such as reaching out to others, going to they gym, journaling, etc, to replace eating.