Five Reasons People Overeat

By Jeffrey B. Brown, MD

When you eat past full you are using food to fulfill a need for

1. Energy – a need for more energy

2. Company – to relieve loneliness and boredom

3. Mood – to calm anxiety and lift depression

4. Stress – to induce relaxation

5. Addiction – to satisfy a sugar addiction

Energy

Physical energy is the most basic of human needs.

Foods, sugary foods in particular, are used while awake as a pick-me-up during the day when you are not well rested, over-worked, out-of-shape, relatively malnourished by a bad diet and emotionally unstable. If one does not work to correct any of the causes of chronic low energy in the body, one will use food as a pick-me-up during the day.

Company

If you are lonely and bored because of social isolation, food often becomes your only company and enjoyment in life. And if you don't find ways to get socially connected to others, food or some other substance to give temporary enjoyment will be your only friend.

Mood

With uncontrolled mental illness, you will use food as medicine. The consumption of carbs in the form of sugars and starches boosts the feel-good brain hormone serotonin. It is serotonin levels that are low in depression.

If you don't address your mood there is a strong chance that you will use food as medicine. Eating to treat your mood only temporarily relieves your suffering but you're still left with the underlying problem.

Stress

Life has many stresses and it is impossible to avoid all stress, and while you can't avoid all stress, you can decide how you will respond to stress. The most instinctual response to stress is to become reactive by doing the thing that feels best at that moment, such as over eating.

If you're going to put down the junk food in response to stress, you must mindfully decide to practice stress reduction techniques.

Addiction

Sugar acts on the same pleasure and reward systems in the brain as many other drugs of abuse such was cocaine, heroin, caffeine, nicotine and etc.

You must treat your sugar addiction just like you would any other addiction. The only way to stop the cycle of abuse is to stop consuming the substance by any means necessary.

As you come off sugar, you will go through a mild withdrawal, but the longer you stay off the less the cravings for the substance will be.