The body’s need for sweets is an excuse for women suffering from food dependence. As soon as the time comes, when “and boring, and sad, and there is no one’s hand,” everyone gets out as he can.
Someone is crying in the pillow, telling her all her troubles, someone is drinking bitter, someone is eating sweet. So the person is arranged: if one of the ways helps to calm down and understand that life is good, we appeal to him again and again.
And if with every piece of cake eaten, life’s troubles become more and more distant, and next morning you sit down on bread and water, it is possible that you became a victim of food addiction. About who and why choose food as a “stressor”, the correspondent of SHE recognized.
With what does it eat?
“Nutritional dependence is a neurosis, and neurosis is worse than a disease, this is a borderline state – neither health, nor disease. They do not die directly from him, but the quality of life is significantly reduced, “- says Krasnoyarsk psychologist Anna Sorokoumova,” Consulting Center for Psychology and Business. ” If you have drunk a glass of champagne, this does not mean that you are an alcoholic.
If you, exhausted from hunger, pounce on the refrigerator after a hard working day, this is also not a diagnosis. “The main sign of dependence is abundant food in the absence of hunger. With food dependence, a person consumes food, regardless of whether he really needs it or not. Most often, this happens in situations when he is experiencing or rejoicing, “says Svetlana Salnikova, a specialist at the weight reduction center Dr. Bormental.
Periodic gluttony can alternate with a sense of guilt and debilitating diets, which sooner or later will again lead to a breakdown. If you spend a lot of time thinking about what you ate an hour ago, and what you will eat tonight, put yourself an extra plus in favor of addiction.
According to a study conducted by English specialists, almost half of the adult population devastates the refrigerator from boredom, loneliness or excessive stress. At the same time, a quarter of them feel guilty.
According to psychologists, the mechanism of the emergence of food dependence in women and men is the same, but in women this type of dependence is more common: “It is more socially acceptable for a man to drink, which can not be said about a woman. Therefore, she often uses food, in order to forget and escape from reality. I ate a chocolate bar – it became more fun. There is no sex – the cake will do, “- says Svetlana Salnikova. In addition, food addiction has more delayed harmful consequences than alcoholism and drug addiction.
Eating at home
If you do not smoke, it’s hard for you to understand how a couple of puffs can give you a sense of peace and self-confidence. However, food dependence works according to the same laws – this habit has been formed throughout the life of a person, including using a “family” stereotype. If parents regularly reassure a crying child with sweets and cakes, and the feast is invariably accompanied by overeating, it is not surprising that after growing up, he will continue to relieve stress and seek the feeling of the holiday with old proven means.
According to Anna Sorokoumova, the habit of jamming is usually formed in people who are not able to organize themselves sources of pleasure, do not allow themselves to express feelings, do not know about their internal resources and suffer from low self-esteem.
According to Svetlana Salnikova, a factor in the absence of a goal in life plays a special role in the lives of people subject to food dependence: “Each person has a certain amount of energy that is produced inside the body. If he does not use it at high levels: intelligence, logic, achievement of his life goals, he begins to sink to the lower levels: eat more, sleep longer and have more sex. ”
Sweet life
“Food gives us pleasure, as with the absorption of delicious endorphins are produced, serotonin – the” hormones “of happiness, pleasure and good mood,” explains Anna Sorokoumova. “However, excess food is a very hard lender, we pay too high interest for that short-lived joy that we experience when we eat food. ” Of course, if you sink your sorrows in a plate of salad, a feeling of guilt and hatred towards yourself is unlikely to arise. But, as a rule, vegetables give way to fatty, sweet and high-calorie foods. As an excuse, the argument “the organism requires” often comes up – it’s amazing why the body prefers chocolate and ice cream, and not apples and cucumbers?
“The favorite method of psychological defense, which allows to preserve the remnants of self-esteem when overeating, is the way to explain its dependence by the organism’s need for a specific product.
However, it is useful to know that sweet chocolate has an antidepressant effect, fatty dull sensitivity to pain (in particular, spiritual), potatoes, pasta, flour reduce the feeling of stress and fear, “continues Anna Sorokoumova.
According to her, the top five, products that are popular with food addiction, include chips, ice cream, biscuits, sweets and pizza. They, like a tablet of analgin, do not eliminate the causes of the disease, but only temporarily improve their health. But unlike tablets in the situation of food dependence, you will subsequently be guaranteed eternal discomfort from chronic overeating.
What to do?
As with any other addiction, it is important to understand the reasons. Sometimes it can be difficult to do on your own. “Food will become our friend when we become a friend. This should be specially studied. People with food dependence – to learn from specialists: psychologists, nutritionists, psychotherapists, – says Anna Sorokoumova. – You do not treat tuberculosis and diabetes yourself? A competent dietician, everyone thinks himself. ”
Nevertheless, you can try to determine what you are eating at this or that time: to satisfy hunger, get rid of boredom or reduce the experience? The very realization that you consume food when you are not hungry will be the first step to getting rid of the problem.
“If you understand that you need food for pleasure, you can try to find other sources of pleasure,” says Svetlana Salnikova. By the way, one of such sources can be any movement – from an evening walk to a dance class. The usefulness of the movement in the fight against food addiction is assured by British scientists who found that even a short walk can reduce the desire to eat candy.
