Why We Eat: Food, Emotions & Connection

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Why We Eat: Food, Emotions & Connection

In a perfect world, all of us would eat for one reason and one reason alone: because we are hungry. However, anyone who has ever spent a boring day in front of the TV or has reached into the freezer for the ice cream. When a relationship has gone sour … or has stayed up late into the night working on a stressful project will know firsthand that this is not the case.

Our feelings and emotions at any particular time have a very real effect on our choices.

When and what to eat. Moreover, while external factors have a significant effect on how we are feeling the status of our relationship or the demands of ทางเข้า ufabet https://ufabet999.app our job. For example our emotions should be considered an internal factor behind our weight for some excellent reasons. For one, the way we process our experience into emotion is unique to each of us. We may not always feel as if we are in complete control of how situations or events impact our emotional state. However, the fact remains that this is an internal process.

Secondly, psychological conditions like depression and anxiety. Can hold sway over our emotions. Those who experience these know that they can influence many of the choices made and the actions taken on a day-to-day basis. Moreover, many of these choices and actions, in turn, have an effect on weight.

Depression, of course, is only one example of an emotional condition link to our weight. Stress, boredom, or a simple case of the blues may be all it takes for some of us to make less-than-healthy choices in what we eat and how much activity we get. A lonely evening with nothing to do is the trigger to search the fridge for some of us. 

This is what researchers at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine found. When investigating how comfort foods work. Specifically, they saw that engaging in what they call “palatable snacking”—think gobbling down a stack of Oreos with a glass of chocolate milk may dampen the nervous system’s response to stress. Their conclusion? “Stress tends to alter the pattern of food consumption, and promotes craving of [calorie]-dense comfort foods.”