Dr. Eliana Violetti
- Psychologist
- Psychotherapist
- Cognitive behavioral psychotherapy
- Functional Coach
The need to eat is not just about the body. Often the mind also vents on the need for food: in fact, we do not always eat to satisfy our hunger, which most of the time is triggered by boredom, anger, frustration, sadness.
All emotional states that are hard to bear cause a tension that we try to release by eating, which is why many of us use food both to relieve emotional stress and as a form of reward. Consciously or unconsciously, when we face a problem or a particularly negative moment in our life, we often eat more and without paying attention to whether the foods are healthy.
It is no coincidence in fact that in these moments we prefer high-calorie foods, very sweet, very salty or fatty, that is industrial and tastier foods that lead us to eat them in greater quantities, often without realizing it.
When we impulsively take refuge in comfort foods, we do not reflect on what emotional stresses are driving our urge to eat in an almost "automatic" way. Emotional hunger can lead us into the trap of guilt, generating a vicious circle from which it is hard to escape.
If you have found yourself alone at home, opened the fridge without a specific need and eaten a sweet you came across without being hungry, you did so because it is likely you have experienced the power of emotional hunger.
Obviously eating more during a phase of our life is not necessarily a negative thing. But if the behavior repeats several times, and when eating behavior is tied to unpleasant emotions we want to silence, it is possible to remain stuck in an unhealthy cycle in which the real need has not been addressed.
Food may indeed seem like the first quick effective solution, because in reality the feelings underlying the food compulsion have not been understood. Often the feelings following food are those of guilt and difficulty in facing problems constructively.
Difference between physical hunger and emotional hunger
Emotional hunger comes on suddenly. It hits you in an instant, you feel it as urgent and it demands specific foods, often unhealthy, fatty, hyper-caloric: snacks, sugars, chips, salty crackers that have the power to release tension and stress immediately, without necessarily making us feel full.
Without even noticing it, you may have already finished an entire pack of chips or an entire tub of ice cream without paying attention and therefore without really tasting the flavor. Emotional hunger is not in the stomach, because rather than a stomach pang or hearing embarrassing rumblings, it presents itself as a desire that starts directly from the head and is not satisfied even if you are full. You keep wanting more things, eating beyond satiety.
Physical hunger instead comes on gradually and does not require immediate satisfaction. When we are hungry, even fruit and vegetables are enough to satisfy us and we feel satisfied once the stomach is full.
The causes of emotional hunger
Stress. When stress is chronic, as in the chaotic and frantic world we live in, cortisol, the stress hormone, rises to exaggerated levels. It is precisely this hormone that triggers the desire for sweets, salty things and that junk food that has the power to give us immediate energy and pleasure.
Emotions. Eating can be a way to temporarily turn off negative emotions: fear, anger, sadness, anxiety, loneliness, resentment, a sense of ineffectiveness and shame. Food helps to avoid these unpleasant inner sensations.
Boredom and the feeling of emptiness. These two emotions have the ability to regulate our hunger. Food acts as a content for the sense of emptiness (comfort food) and the moment our stomach fills up, we get distracted from the feelings of dissatisfaction in our life.
Childhood habits. Let's think back to our childhood: how many times do we remember our parents, to reward us for something, buying us an ice cream, a pack of chips with a surprise inside? These childhood habits are often carried into adult life as well, also because part of our way of eating may be guided by nostalgia for the memories tied to our family of origin.
Social influences. Sharing a lunch or dinner with other people is a great way to relieve stress, but the risk is overeating. It is easy to overdo it because food is right there available for everyone or because everyone is eating, and so we feel authorized, and perhaps less guilty, to do so too. Furthermore, food is also a moment of social sharing and that greatly influences our way of eating.
How to prevent emotional hunger
- Find a coach for your diet, someone who supports you and who you can rely on when you are about to give in.
- Eliminate temptations from the house, that is, anything that could make you lose control.
- Eat slowly while seated, in a calm and quiet environment, because it will help you have more awareness of what you are eating.
- Learn to recognize the difference between physical hunger and emotional hunger: place your hands on your belly and listen to your stomach, recognize whether it is hunger or a desire to eat.
- Eat until you are satisfied but not full: it is mandatory to end the meal not when the food on the plate is finished, but when you feel satiated.
- Identify the emotions, situations and places that lead you to eat more.
- Find other ways to face negative emotions: stress, anxiety, boredom, loneliness.
- Learn to accept all feelings, even unpleasant ones.
- Acquire awareness about food, both about how much we eat and about choosing one food over another.
And are you an emotional eater?
- Do you eat more when you feel stressed?
- Do you keep eating even when you are not hungry or you are full?
- Do you tend to reward yourself with food?
- Does food make you feel safe?
- Do you feel food as a comforting friend?
- Do you feel powerless or feel like you are losing control when you eat a lot?
Ask for help!
If you have tried to control yourself but still cannot keep emotional hunger at bay, if you do not clearly feel physical hunger before eating or satiety after a meal, or if you confuse emotions with the urge to fill yourself with food, consider starting a journey with professionals who can guide you both toward a proper food path and, in particular, toward greater awareness of your emotional world, which sometimes we cannot listen to if we immediately fill it with food.
