Emotional hunger is the loose term used when people eat instead of facing a difficult emotional situation. This means that it is common to have excess weight. Knowing this is happening is the first step. The second step is to become acquainted with healthy food. The result can be that you can indulge in healthy eating for weight loss without feeling guilty.
Emotional hunger has become normal in our unhealthy world. Busy parents fob children off who are upset, with food especially sweet food. So food becomes synonymous with emotional security and the weight piles on. I’m not blaming the parents for this. They are under pressure and this probably happened to them.
But it does show a system which is flawed. Parents shouldn’t be under pressure. Parenthood should be a time to relax, to enjoy, to teach as well as to learn. Parenthood should be about creating a loving environment in which the child can grow, feeling utterly secure. Secure enough to examine each emotional upset as it occurs, to understand it for what it is and then to deal with it or let it go, as is appropriate.
Instead these emotional issues, which are very much part of being a child, are not dealt with. They become buried, to erupt at inappropriate times. And so emotional eating is born. The tendency to eat to keep the emotions at bay draws you towards unhealthy and fattening foods – sweets, candy, lollies, chocolate, cakes, biscuits and so on.
The ideal here is to resolve the emotional issues. However, these can be deeply buried in most adults. Help is normally needed, to provide the security you lacked in childhood. Probably the best people to help you with this are psychologists and homeopaths. The advantage with psychologists is that you won’t have to pay as it is now available on most national health plans. The advantage with homeopathy is that it is likely to be much faster.
However, even if you don’t resolve the core issue of your emotional eating, once you know what the healthy foods are, as well as what the unhealthy foods are and what they do to your health, then you can substitute the unhealthy food for healthy food. This means you can eat away to your heart’s content, lose weight and improve your health, all at the same time.
Healthy eating for weight loss doesn’t mean you starve yourself. Quite the reverse.
