Does Eating Solve Your Problelms?

Many disregulated eaters have convinced themselves that eating solves their problems, or at least extinguishes the distress they have about their problems. Really? I’m of the opinion that eating to solve problems only causes more of them. I’m not saying that when you were a child eating didn’t make you feel better emotionally. Back then when you overate, binged or snacked in secret, you might have felt comforted without the guilt, shame or disappointment in yourself that you feel today when you engage in these behaviors. When your problem was, “I’m in emotional pain and I have no other way of soothing myself,” eating came in very handy. Maybe overeating helped you tune out the nightly battles between your parents at dinnertime, or crawling under the covers and snarfing down candy bars provided you with a bit of sweetness in a life that was full of bitterness, or maybe being a good eater was one of the few ways you received praise from your parents, so you went at it with gusto.  We could say that your problem then was not only emotional distress, but the severely limited ways you had to manage it. As a young child, you couldn’t very well escape when your parents were fighting nor could you, without becoming the target of their rage, step in and request or demand that they quit it because it was unbearably distressing to you. If your life was dreary and you were depressed because you were neglected, you couldn’t go out and seek other...
Source: Normal Eating - Category: Eating Disorders Authors: Source Type: blogs