Healthy eating
I have given you an outline of eating disorders under the ‘Psychiatry Section’. The aim of this article is to help you understand whether you have any problems with food and some of the reasons as to why that maybe.
The first question you need to ask yourself is WHAT DO I ASSOCIATE WITH FOOD/EATING? And write down the answer. If it is anything else other than it is a source of energy to enable your body to function properly; you enjoy food and whilst you may have your likes and dislikes with regard to some food, you are not scared of food or eating then you have food issues.
It is common knowledge that food has strong associations with emotions. This is often because it is used as a means of control e.g. ‘finish your food or there’ll be no pudding!’ ‘You can’t have that because you’ve been a naughty child!’ ‘You can have an ice cream because you’ve been such good girl’ ‘Stop crying, come on have this biscuit’…the list is long!! We are all familiar with sentences like that. In addition, many people have been teased or negatively labelled because of their size and shape, which has led them to develop a negative self-concept. There is of course the enormous social pressure of “looking good” which has always existed, according to what constitutes “beauty” in different cultures and in different epochs throughout the history!
What is the consequence of all that?
The consequence is that people start misusing and/or abusing food! There are people who are “comfort eaters” i.e. use eating and food as a means of comforting themselves when stressed, distresses, upset…others use food “ to punishment” themselves i.e. they feel so disgusted, appalled and dissatisfied that they decide all they deserve is to be “ugly, overweight, unattractive” etc. Then they are others who don’t think they “deserve food” because ‘they are a failure, not perfect, useless, unworthy” etc. so they rob themselves of any pleasure and enjoyment that food may give them and start restricting their eating and/or starving themselves.
However dissimilar the above categories may seem on the surface, the common thread is that food is used as an emotional regulator and control mechanism because the person is feeling overwhelmed in other areas of their life and not facing, addressing and dealing with the “real issues and problems” accordingly!!
