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The Psychology of Overeating

Due to our strong mind-body connection we literally program our living cells moment to moment via our thoughts and especially our feelings. If you find yourself running for something to eat every time you feel emotionally upset, disappointed or hurt, you might be a comfort eater and use food to lift your mood. Comfort foods, like chocolate and biscuits or starchy foods, increase the body's natural feel-good neurotransmitter, seretonin. Unfortunately like all quick fixes and addictions, the instant gratification is soon followed by a strong sense of guilt and feeling like a failure, which brings on depression.

If losing weight seems like a monumental task to you, consider first how you feel about yourself in general. The greater your sense of shame tied up to your appearance, the more desperate your need for change of your appearance will be and the more you'll be inclined to feel hopeless about losing weight. Your confidence becomes undermined and the ensuing sense of powerlessness soon predisposes you to become victim to the myriad of instant diet pills and potions on the market. Unfortunately these are geared to pry on people with low self-esteem, with only monetary interest at heart and very little concern about the long term and side effects of these pills.

The saying goes that inside every fat person is a thin person dying to come out. Psychologists call this inner person your "inner child" which probably needed a lot of cover up at some point in time in order to deal with difficult life circumstances. If we connect with this inner child and become aware of what causes him/her to run for the fridge in the first place, we can start to reprogram ourselves by tending to our real hurts and needs instead.

Take "Anna" for example, who experienced sexual abuse as a child. She grew up to be an attractive and voluptuous woman. Yet every time a man leered at her she felt shame and repulsion. Anna started eating, subconsciously motivated to put on weight as a barrier between her and the outside world and also to hide her curvaceous figure in order to avoid lecherous stares. Yet at the same time she has grown accustomed to using her sexuality to control and manipulate men.

Anna's primal need is for respect, love and healthy affection from an intimate relationship, yet she is programmed to associate intimacy with sexuality and thereby she keeps compromising herself sexually in order to get her basic needs for love "fulfilled". This discrepancy between her need for respect and love versus her tendency to self-sacrifice in sexual behavior increases her sense of shame and the need for her inner child to resort to various defense mechanisms as well as her compulsive eating disorder.

Anna needs to honor and respect herself by focusing on what really makes her happy. She needs to practice hobbies and develop talents where she could meet men who share the same interests and value her for other qualities than just her (physical) body. Anna also needs to change her attitude towards men as sexual predators in order to break free from meeting the "wrong" type of men who perpetuate her one-sided perception and overemphasis on sexuality. Thus the cycle keeps on repeating itself and keeps her entrapped in her negative habits.

Some people use food indulgently as part of a decadent life-style. They are quite aware that they are eating beyond a point of satiety, yet cannot seem to make themselves stop. Overeating puts tremendous strain on the liver and may lead to enlargement of the liver with fat infiltration and considerable damage to the functionality of the liver. Binge eaters are quite aware of the severe discomfort of overeating, yet this doesn't stop their behavior. Food has become a means to self-destructive behavior or self-punishment.

We need to ask ourselves what it is that we dislike so much in ourselves that we need to punish ourselves. Why are we so hard on ourselves that the simple bit of self-discipline required to stop eating when we are full, becomes such a difficult task that we would rather abandon all reason and give over to our rebellious inner child? By becoming aware of how and when we felt trapped under excessive discipline and criticism in our past, we can break the pattern of such an unnecessary authority that we've subconsciously internalized. Pay attention to your real needs. Are they really excessive or out of line? Wouldn't a different approach of gentle encouragement and the focus on our good qualities have better results in our behavior?


Source: elements4health.com/psychology-of-overeating.html