Chaya, a girl who is very shy finds herself eating whenever she feels low, blue, or stressing a lot during her exams. This pattern continued in her early twenties and no sooner she found herself obese and other medical conditions that come along obesity.
ETV Bharat Sukhibhava spoke to Kajal U.Dave, Psychologist and Play Therapist at Mindsight, Mindart, Coffee Conversations,Mumbai for some quick tips.
We all have heard this quote of “Good food is to Good mood”. The way food affects were mood is well known but our mood and our thoughts also encourage us for food choices be it healthy or unhealthy choices. Take a moment to ask yourself what food you like to have when you are so happy? What food do you think of when sad or angry or frustrated? The answer is pack food or ice cream tub or something for munching.
Here what we are doing is trying to find comfort in food. We feel the solution for anything can be temporarily answered with food. We loosely use these terms like emotional eater. The same thing was happening with this girl Chaya who used to turn food as her comfort when she experiences difficult emotions. This is found very common during adolescents and early adulthood.
Let’s understand what exactly happens when we are talking about finding comfort in food. Several others when they experience anger or frustrated they avoid or skip meals. But there are other people who find solitude in food. There are several reasons behind this like not able to share the feelings to others or bottling up their own emotions and finding food as support. Sometimes while feeling a lack of confidence in a particular situation for e.g. not sure how to pass the critical examination.
There is also an unrealistic comparison of ourselves with our best friends as we want to have a perfect image and looks. So when we are dealing with a lot of expectations we are also creating a lot of pressure on ourselves and feel fatigued and bad about ourselves as the vicious cycle continues. So let’s understand what should be done:
- Be mindful of what you eat and avoid gadgets but sit at least one time with family members.
- Maintain a diary or journal on what you eat, what time, any situation that triggered a thought before that eating, any particular feeling experienced.e.g. 2 a.m. munching on lays and ice cream because one is very stressed for the next day project or exam. Or eating full ice cream tub as one was rejected in a job or relationship.
- Once you identify difficult feelings try to share it with a trusted person.
- Keep a healthy routine as much as possible and stop feeling bad or guilty about yourself if you miss it one day. It’s okay to start from fresh.
- Remember you are more than enough to deal with any life situations be it an exam, project, failed relationship, or a difficult job. Focus on your support system rather than finding solitude in food.
