Comfort eating Factsheet

We all have a different relationship to food.  Throughout the lifecycle food will play many different roles.  The majority of men are usually not that bothered about food, they eat when food is put in front of them or they eat when they are hungry. 03-10-2007

Women are different, for some unknown reason food is either one of our best friends or our enemy.  Off course this is a generalization. 
My friend described her eating as follows, she starts off with a healthy breakfast and feels on top of the world, at 10 am when the tea trolley passes she eyes the freshly baked goodies, but manages to resist and has an apple instead, at 12 am her manager calls a meeting and she gets the flack for a target not met.  Feeling like a failure, she eats her packed lunch, but feels the need for more, when she is drawn to the magnetic vending machine and finishes off two chocolate bars during the afternoon…….  For her comfort eating has been an endless struggle.
Comfort eating is when we use food to assuage feelings, cope with stress or even when we relax.  Comfort eating is a type of “emotional eating” that happens when we eat because of how we are feeling emotionally, rather than because of physical hunger.  It could be as simple as overeating as a way of dealing with painful or difficult emotions or sometimes even out of boredom.  Responses to food can become pattern forming and sometimes stems from childhood years.  Often the act of eating itself becomes important.  Comfort eaters often don’t even think about food that much or appreciate what they are eating. 
Unfortunately this habit of eating is negative and in most cases will lead to weight gain, which then adds insult to the injury.  Many suffer from comfort eating for years and years and it can be the main cause of a weight problem.
Our society’s obsession with thinness does not help.  If you are constantly dieting but suffer from comfort eating, you will feel a failure each time you touch the allegedly “forbidden” foods, which will probably be nothing but another trigger for overeating.
A recent survey of 2,000 people showed 47% of adolescents aged 16-24 and 40% of those aged 35-44 had eaten because they were bored.  25% of women and people aged 45-54 have eaten because they were stressed. 
It is important to realise that comfort eating is about emotions and not about food.
Here are 3 action points:
• Identify the triggers of comfort eating
• It may be worthwhile to keep a food and mood diary
• Contact a counselling service, there are many available
• It is best to talk to a counsellor who will listen, support and advise you how to cope with your feelings and with different events in your life