Feeding feelings

Saru was absentmindedly popping one chip after another into her mouth, enjoying every bite, when she realized with shock that there were no more chips left in the packet. And the packet was not a small snack-size one but a large-party container. How did she end up eating so much in one sitting?

When Saru thought about how she started eating, she remembered she had had a bad fight with her brother that day. Saru KC*, 35, was a journalist used to stressful work hours, but the added emotional stress from family problems put her in the worst of moods. Fuming from the conflict, she never realized when she picked up the packet and began eating.

Every bite she ate made her feel better, and very soon, the packet was empty. She had once again indulged in emotional eating, that is, eating to relieve stress, not to satiate hunger.

Mental health counselor Kent Rogers informs that often, food is the safest way out of stress. “Unpleasant emotions are an uncomfortable place to be in,” he says, “and many people seek the fast way out of it through anything that provides instant pleasure.” For some, it may be drugs, for some it may be alcohol. And for many, food provides a good feeling instantly, which helps them forget their problems.

People who indulge in such eating explain their fixation in various ways. Some say it activates the sensory organs, some say it gives them something to do and diverts their mind away from the problems at hand. Some point to the instant gratification that food gives. “At the time, you don’t even think about the weight you could be gaining,” says Pabitra Khadka, theatre actress at Shilpee Theatre Group. “When you’re stressed, nothing makes you happy. You eat food, and it immediately makes you happy, gives you a sense of fulfillment. You just want to feel better, and you know food will help you do so.”

Such emotional hunger differs from physical hunger in many ways. In physical hunger, you feel full after you finish eating, but in emotional hunger you can eat on and on even after you are full. In emotional eating, you don’t even have to be hungry to start eating; it can start from early in the morning.

“It’s a learned behavior,” informs Dr. Arun Kunwar, a psychiatrist at Metro Clinic. “From a young age, people realize that eating makes them feel better. So when they have a problem, solving it may not be in their capacity. But they know that eating can make them feel better.”

Like fever, emotional eating is a symptom, not a disease. Often, there are underlying problems that lead the person to depression, which causes overt stress. When you are stressed, your stomach secretes acids similar to those when you are hungry. This leads you to eat, and in some cases, overeat.

Sometimes the food helps you solve the problem you are facing. Shraddha Thapa, a journalist at Business360, once ate tubs of ice cream after she fought with her mother-in-law. “The taste of ice-cream melting in my mouth was so yummy, I just couldn’t stop until I finished,” she remembers. The delicious snack made her so happy that she went and apologized to her mother-in-law, which ended happily for all of them.

But though food may solve the immediate problem, it often turns into a bigger problem later. The foods that most people reach out for during stress are full of carbohydrates, because carbohydrates provide instant fulfillment, faster than other kinds of food. Unfortunately, this category of food is also the most fattening.

Popular comfort foods include sweet, salty, or greasy food like chocolates and potato chips. The sugar content in sweet foods give sugar high, which excite chemicals that make the eater feel good. But the high only lasts for a short while, making you crave more and more. Saru agrees, mentioning how gorging on chocolates had suddenly raised her weight when she was going through a particularly stressful period at work.

Often, people are unaware that their emotional eating is a problem, since they cannot differentiate it from regular eating. In such cases, just making the person aware of this condition has the potential to cure it. To make patients understand what they are doing, Dr. Kunwar simply asks them to reconsider the steps they take when they become stressed, and makes them realize how they are turning to food for comfort. “When they are aware of what they are doing, they start watching what they eat and controlling how much they eat,” says Dr. Kunwar.

But sometimes the behavior becomes compulsive when you cannot stop eating even if you try. Apart from leading to obesity, this compulsive behavior becomes a problem of its own, leading the person to doubt their self control and confidence. For Saru, emotional eating leads to a vicious cycle. After she gets so full that she cannot eat any more, she feels guilty that she ate so much. Then she starts feeling bad again, which may lead to another bout of gorging after a couple of hours.

Dr. Kunwar informs that in extreme cases, such guilt can lead to bulimia. In bulimia, in the first phase, you cannot stop eating, and in the second phase, once the guilt sets in, you start disgorging what you ate by forcibly vomiting. This leads to the person becoming underweight.

With the availability of different types of high calorie food rising, it is easier than ever to seek and find comfort in food. “Nepalis are getting wealthier, and that increases their access to items that were considered luxury in previous times,” informs Rogers.

There is no surefire way to cure it, because no drug can make you stop craving food. From the moment we are born and fed, food becomes associated with comfort in our minds. The association is intrinsic to humans, which makes it very difficult to stop seeking comfort in food.

Long-lasting solution to emotional eating can come from treating the disease and not the symptom. This kind of behavior is common among people who are prone to anxiety, depression, and nervousness. Hence, to cure emotional eating, you need to analyze your own feelings, and find out what is making you nervous and depressed. Only after addressing the underlying causes of your anxiety or depression can you get out of the habit of emotional eating.

*name changed

How to identify if you are an emotional eater:

• You become hungry suddenly instead of gradually.
• You crave specific foods, most often very sweet or very salty things like chocolates or chips.
• For anything good, you reward yourself with food.
• If anything goes wrong, you console yourself with food.
• You continue eating even when you’re full.
• Eating doesn’t improve your mood.
• You feel guilty after you’ve finished eating.
• Physical hunger is accompanied by lethargy or headache. If you don’t always feel these when you’re hungry, your hunger is emotional.