Why do we self medicate with food? Help me with this!

Losingthedamnweight

Is it to distract yourself from your problems? Is it the high of having high calorie foods in your system and the good feelings it gives you? But why, even knowing the reality of obesity and health related issues, do we act against logic and do it anyway? Is this a type of addiction?

Whew! Deep questions! I'm writing a paper on all of this and I need as best of an understanding as possible about why people do the things they do. Can anyone tell me about the psychological and physiological aspects of this or be cool enough to provide a little linkage for me to continue reading about this? Are people in general more emotional than logical creatures? Why would someone who's seriously overweight and that knows they are, continue eating badly and not try to fix this? Why do people not change in the face of an overwhelmingly negative part of their life impacting them? Willpower? Addiction? Not giving a damn?

I can speak about it on a personal level because surprise surprise. It affects me too! But I need more than that. Opinions. Anecdotes, empirical data. Also for those that have changed and live a healthy lifestyle, what changed them to pull them that direction? A wake up call? A tragic event? Just being tired of being unhealthy? Watcha got for me peeps?!

kayla_who

It's different for everyone. Watch any discover health show on someone who is morbidly obese and they'll tell you they turned to food for comfort. Then it just kinda snowballs...the more they eat, the bigger they get, the less they move so less calories are being burned, so they get bigger and move even less.

I've heard cases of women being molested early in life and so they subconsciously turn to food to make themselves unattractive so it will ever happen again.

Others just like the way food taste, so they keep eating.

HEATHERACU73

You probably want to read these books if you want to understand more:

Salt, Sugar, Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us

Your Food is Fooling You: How your brain is hijacked by sugar, fat and salt

There's a bunch of other similar books, but they all repeat the same thing - the food industry has capitalized on our brain's addiction to sugar, fat and salt causing a nation of obese people

arabianhorselover

It provides pleasure, it's relaxing, it's always available.

Losingthedamnweight

You probably want to read these books if you want to understand more:

Salt, Sugar, Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us

Your Food is Fooling You: How your brain is hijacked by sugar, fat and salt

There's a bunch of other similar books, but they all repeat the same thing - the food industry has capitalized on our brain's addiction to sugar, fat and salt causing a nation of obese people

Wow. After you're comment, I bought salt sugar and fat on my iPad and have been reading it for the past hour. Thank you so much for recommending it! To anyone totally new to it, it's a pretty shocking idea that food companies are literally engineering food to be addictive. If it were cigarettes, congress would look at it differently. But food? Nobody seems to be taking nutrition seriously. Taking our own health seriously seems to be seen as prudish or uncool in our culture instead going for "relax! It's just food. You don't wanna be like one of them skinny *****es do ya?"

Wayyyyy more education on this subject is needed for the masses. I think a lack of education is a huge contributer to the obesity epidemic. People just don't know

rb16fitness

Food releases endorphins and increases serotonin in the brain, essentially we're giving ourselves a legal high. Too bad humans can't just purr and cheers ourselves up as cats do...ho hum. I'm a recovering emotional eater and sugar addict.

diannethegeek

I used my weight as a sort of shield or cushion between me and the real world. People didn't see "me" just the fat around me. And that's how I liked it. Every time someone complimented me or noticed the weight loss I just wanted to sit at home and eat to make myself invisible again. It's why I often say that I couldn't have lost the weight without a good therapist.

I probably did get a sugar rush from eating. I still crave sugary foods when I'm sick because my body is looking for the pick-me-up. I also ate to fill some sort of emotional void that couldn't be filled. And to quiet my own anxiety. And to fill the space around me, the same way that a hoarder might fill in the empty space in their home.

The emotional issues some of us have with food are varied and complicated and they probably don't make any logical sense to those who don't suffer from them. They barely make any sort of sense to me. I found a lot of comfort in food and it's been a constant struggle to find other things and other people that provide the same level of comfort. That's the part of the battle too many people overlook, imo. Healthy habits are about more than just diet and exercise. They also have to include emotional health.

Roaringgael

http://authoritynutrition.com/

This guy has some interesting articles and stuff on food addiction.
I have a junk food addiction.
Addiction is complex and really like the 12 step people say: You are addicted if you say you are.
Its personal.
Junk food is addictive as you are probably reading in the book you mentioned.
I lost a lot of weight many years ago and actually became frightened of how thin I was (I became noticeable in my thinking) - sounds psychological to me.

One other thing I am a shift worker and when I come of night shift onto my days off (finish in the am) I have to be SUPER careful because when I am overtired I crave to eat in some mistaken belief it will give me energy instead of just going and sleeping.

wheird

Well, people overeat for several reasons. Social pressure, emotional comfort, avoidance, depression, as a habit, etc. Some overweight people, like myself, simply avoided the problem of their growing weight for so long that by the time they truly comprehend what happened, they look at themselves with self-loathing at what they did to themselves.

Others do it because they are frienda with overweight people who enjoy going out to eat as a social activity and healthy eating would set them apart, so they indulge. Or they are depressed and overeating is a symptom of that to make themselves feel better.

There is no single reason.

Akimajuktuq

Malnutrition. Amazingly, malnutrition can cause all kinds of supposed psychological disorders. Many obese people (and people with eating disorders and depression) are indeed malnourished and that's what makes it so hard to stop eating, because your body is desperate for nutrients that it is not getting. I cured depression, BED, anxiety and a very long list of other diseases just by changing WHAT I eat. No counselling, no willpower (willpower doesn't win over malnutrition!). But I know that I'm wasting my breath. The idea that food affects health, especially brain health, is just too hard for many people to wrap their mind around. Good luck.

nomeejerome

The answer to your question is going to be unique to the individual. There are many that believe "food addiction" and "sugar addiction" are real, but they do not exist in diagnostic material. There are other diagnosis that capture issues with food or other behaviors. Unfortunately, the term "addiction" is thrown around instead of finding out what the real issue is and how to treat it. There is plenty of information out there, but you must use your critical thinking skills to filter through all of the crap, which includes scare tactics in books and the notion that you can cure mental illness with diet alone.

LoseWithLaurie

The answer to your question is going to be unique to the individual. There are many that believe "food addiction" and "sugar addiction" are real, but they do not exist in diagnostic material. There are other diagnosis that capture issues with food or other behaviors. Unfortunately, the term "addiction" is thrown around instead of finding out what the real issue is and how to treat it. There is plenty of information out there, but you must use your critical thinking skills to filter through all of the crap, which includes scare tactics in books and the notion that you can cure mental illness with diet alone.

^Exactly!!!

Now, onto your question. The "why" is different for all of us and only you can figure that one out. Others can help unravel it sometimes, but it's something you've got to figure out.