Food's Comfort Can Be Hard to Resist

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Food's Comfort Can Be Hard to Resist

In times of stress, opening the fridge is unhealthy choice

(January 24, 2006) -- "Stop crying, and I'll give you a cookie."

Perhaps the powerful connection between food and feelings can start just that simply.

How to overcome emotional eating

There's always a bit of time between the moment you decide to eat something and the moment you actually put it into your mouth. Use that time to ask yourself this question: "What am I really hungry for?"

• Try to deal honestly with the answer to that question, especially if the food you crave is a high-calorie, low-nutrition diet buster. Could it be that you're not really hungry, but rather anxious, stressed out, lonely, angry, bored or in the mood to celebrate?

• Try an alternative to eating as a better way to deal with your feelings. Examples: If you're celebrating or rewarding yourself, enjoy a movie or buy yourself something new to wear. If you're lonely, call a friend. If you're stressed, take a brisk walk to work off steam.

• To get a handle on your emotional eating patterns, use a little notebook to write down everything you eat. Include details such as when you eat, how quickly you finish and what you feel at the time.

• Some foods might be such powerful triggers for overeating that you shouldn't keep them in the house. Identify other triggers - such as TV commercials - and avoid them.

• Remember that exercise is a great way to elevate your mood, if you tend to eat when you're down.

• When you do give in to a craving, pay attention to portion size. For example, go get a scoop of ice cream at Baskin-Robbins, rather than buying a half-gallon of ice cream at the grocery store.

• Occasional splurges won't ruin you. Don't beat yourself up over them. Say, "OK, I had that candy bar, but now it's back to eating sensibly."

• Get enough sleep. You'll tend to eat mindlessly when you're fatigued.

• Eat a healthy, balanced diet and don't go too long between meals and snacks.

• Parents, don't make your kids clean their plates; let them stop when they're satisfied. And find other ways to reward and motivate children, rather than food - including hugs and comments such as "I'm so proud of you."

So we get used to these connections, to the ways food makes us feel better. They're as smooth as the Cheddar in a grilled-cheese sandwich, as sweet as a birthday cupcake, as simple as dipping an Oreo in milk.

Indulge in emotional eating as an adult, however, and it's a sure way to pile on calories, guilt and pounds. And it is hard to break the habit of using food as a coping mechanism, said Stephanie Greene, a therapist who works with obesity patients.

"We all eat emotionally, especially during the holidays," said Greene. "We're eating the anxiety, we're eating the stress, we're eating the loneliness."

That's a diet on which Danielle Shull of Columbia, S.C., became more than 100 pounds overweight. "I've pretty much been an emotional eater all my life," said Shull, 26.

She came to regard food as a fix for all sorts of feelings, not just sadness. "In my family we celebrate everything thing with food," she said. "Everything revolves around food."

That meant huge feasts on holidays, food-centered birthday parties and big spreads on Sundays - "everything fried," she said.

"As I got older, whenever boredom or loneliness would set in, I would head for one of those comfort foods," Shull said.

'A coping tactic'

Frank Chesno has counseled Shull and hundreds of other patients looking into gastric-bypass surgery as a solution to serious obesity. He's a clinical psychologist and director of outpatient psychiatric services at Palmetto Health Baptist in Columbia.

Everywhere people go, they are baited with food through billboards, TV ads, restaurants and even church events, he observed. If you're inclined to use food for comfort, you can do so constantly, including in your car or at your computer.

"Emotional eating is a coping tactic for a lot of us," he said.

For Kirby Player of Clemson, S.C., the pull of emotional eating took him to almost 400 pounds during the past two years as he dealt with a difficult family situation. Even more distressing, this came after he had worked hard to lose 150 pounds in 2001-02.

With his father ill in his hometown of Bishopville, S.C., Player has been driving there every weekend. That's 180 miles there and 180 miles back. With the stress of the situation, the convenience of fast food and the lure of traditional Southern fare at home, the hard-lost pounds came back.

Most people won't hit 396 pounds as he has, yet who can't relate to the mindless comfort when a favorite food hits the spot? Player has insight about that, and his own term for the denial.

"I refer to it as eating amnesia," said Player, 44, an alumni and donor-services coordinator at Clemson University.

"I recognize what I need to be doing," he said. "But when I'm sitting in front of that plate of pizza or fried chicken, I'm immersed in that moment of pleasure or release or celebration. It's almost like being a zombie."

Brain chemistry

Strictly speaking, emotional eating is not just emotional. Physiological factors are at work as well, said Patrick O'Neil, director of the Weight Management Center at the Medical University of South Carolina.

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Compounds in foods such as carbohydrates and chocolate trigger reactions that raise the level of tryptophan in the brain, he said. That is a precursor to serotonin, a neurochemical that can moderate moods.

O'Neil advises people to ask themselves what they are looking for when they indulge in emotional eating. "Then ask, what are some other ways of getting that same feeling, of calming, comfort or whatever?"

Last updated: 01/06

Food's Comfort Can Be Hard to Resist

In times of stress, opening the fridge is unhealthy choice

'A coping tactic'

Brain chemistry

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