EMOTIONAL EATERS: Do you remember when?

velvet_violence

Many of us have identified ourselves as emotional eaters. While many of my choices were indeed steeped in ignorance of nutrition, I very vividly remember the day that I learned to cope with life through food. My parents had a very messy divorce, with my father leaving my mother just after I was born. Where my mom was not put together enough to enforce rules and seemed to disregard them out of spite, apparently my dad in his absence requested daily food logs of my intake from her in that early time.

One day while I was at his house I was treated to a phone conversation I really didn't understand, and for a while I was the one on the other end. This is from 25 years ago so I'm sure my memory is somewhat faulty. Anyway, my stepmom was always angry that my mom would send me with dirty clothes in my suitcase. At one point she forced me to call my own mother in order to request that next time she sent me there to "pack some CLEAN clothes".

Food was one of the only great equalizers for both of my families back then, as starkly different as they were. There were treats we would go on to walk to the store to get, always with the seasonal candy and nightly ice cream. I guess at this point my dad didn't really care so much what kind of food I had at that time. I remember having this phone conversation but also having some Smarties in my backpack full of dirty clothes. What my kindergartner brain said was "This situation is scary and it makes me feel bad, but this sugar is quite nice, and that can help me feel better." I remember also knowing it was gonna bite me in the butt later but I needed something to get me through that visitation.

Does anyone else have a memory of when they learned to eat emotionally?

tech_kitten

I don't have a particular one that comes to mind, but I was always rewarded with indulgent food. Happy meals, candy, cookies, you name it. And Olive Garden was the good report card dinner. And I am all about needing recognition for the good things I do, so it is very contrary to my brain to not shovel awesome sugary fatty creamy goodness into my mouth whenever I succeed.

kk_140

I wouldn't consider myself an emotional eater (I normally do the opposite and stop eating when emotional). But my life from a young age was filled with food. Every occasion was a special occasion. I had it on my head that going out to eat equalled a special occasion! I ate like it was Christmas every time we went out, which was normally more than once a week! Birthdays, grades, Saturday, it was all special lol

It has certainly been a shift to making only special occasions a reason to feast and the rest of them just dinner.

kirili3

Interesting thread, thank you for starting it.

I hope that understanding the root causes of the overeating will help to overcome it.

I think I was quite unconscious of it when it started. I would come home from school, where I didn't do so well with the other kids, and just sit in front of the computer and eat endless plates of food. We never had that much in the way of unhealthy snacks, it was just the quantity. I never noticed because it was one among various forms of escapism. Years of wasting time on the internet and eating as another distraction from thinking created entrenched habits and it's really hard to break those habits. I'm trying though!