Eating Disorders

Life can get hectic and overwhelming at times. Between work, school, difficult relationships, financial concerns, relationship conflicts, or the many social and other issues one faces daily, there is a lot to deal with. When we’re under enormous pressure, various coping options present themselves, though we don’t always make healthy choices. One of the ways people deal with stress is through stress eating, which is also known as emotional eating. Why stress eating is working against you. Stress eating is a common way for people to deal with difficult emotions or situations. Research indicates this connection between stress and food, as people tend to seek high-calorie, high-fat foods during periods of stress. This occurs despite the fact that when people are stressed. their bodies store more fat than when they are relaxed, and this leads to weight gain. According to the American Psychological Association, a survey showed that 38% of US adults said they overate or ate unhealthy foods in the past month because of stress. Around 49% of these adults reported engaging in these behaviors weekly or more. We can turn to food for comfort and to soothe unwanted emotions such as stress, anger, loneliness, or sadness. This impulse to turn to these comfort foods can become an automatic reaction, and that means you reach for those treats in a stressful situation without even thinking about it. Physiologically, what happens when we’re feeling stressed is that our bodies release cortisol, the stress hormone. Cortisol increases a person’s appetite, and distress increases the intake of foods that tend to be either sugary, high in fat, or both. These types of foods, once you eat them, seem to have a dampening effect on stress, and so they really do seem to comfort you. That pizza or pint of ice cream [...]