We all need food to survive and one of our greatest pleasures is the variety of foods available to us to satisfy this need. We’re able to differentiate between so many different tastes and aromas and have developed the chore of eating into such a fine art that we are constantly surrounded with such a huge variety foods. We are often tempted to eat far more than we should or to take part in a completely poor diet. Our relationship to food can become completely out of phase, should we be suffering through particular emotional changes or issues. As we are attuned to eating several times each day, unless we are very careful a poor and unbalanced diet may arise, leading to serious health problems.

Only by looking at our general population as an entirety can we truly begin to understand the scope of the problem. The wide-spread problem of obesity in society – and many other problems as well, can be closely linked to what is commonly known as “emotional eating.” When people are suffering from the worst form of this “hunger,” they’re eating to deal with personal issues or to satisfy their never-ending emotional hunger. The cute phrase we often hear is “comfort food” which is a way of describing the process of eating to try and replace, repair or help you forget something else. Unfortunately, our “instant” society provides us with constant access to all kinds of “quick and easy” foods, processed products with almost no real nutritional value, which often have a very high sugar content as well.

When it comes to your own eating habits, it’s crucial that you recognize whether or not you’re an emotional eater. If you find yourself turning to ice creams, pastas and fast foods during times of upheaval, then you are just feeding your addiction. You are not thinking about holistic health solutions or holistic nutrition, but rather going for what you believe to be a quick fix, which in effect is just aggravating the problem. You might feel a short-term comfort or “high” but the consequent low will just make you focus even more on the issues which were there in the first place and have not gone away.

Realize that it may not be easy to overcome your food addiction and your emotional eating habits. The first step is certainly recognizing that you have a problem, but you may need the help of a trained health professional or a support group to intervene to break the cycle permanently. One thing is for sure, we will face challenges and emotional difficulties throughout our lives, but we should try and maintain a physically healthy life as much as possible to enable us to ride this roller coaster best.

Dr. Elson Haas of the Preventative Medical Center tells us that we will need “greater attentiveness and a willingness to deal openly with emotions and other adversities that may block our way to healing.” Analyze your diet very carefully and start planning to kick your sugar addiction, which may well be at the core of the issue. Chances are that whatever is holding you back and helping to create your challenges can be diet related, and if you are an emotional eater, the kind of fuel that you put in your body will not be able to provide you with the mental and physical tools to help you do battle.

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