All About Compulsive & Emotional Eating

You have emotional and intellectual needs that your mind views as necessities. When these needs go unmet, your mind will use food as a coping mechanism to temporarily fill those needs.

The Need for Certainty/Security

Everyone needs to feel in control of their lives; facing the unknown can be very unsettling for many people. When a person loses the feeling of being in control, the mind will strive to regain control by employing whatever habits and behaviors it has been programmed with.

This is a major area of weakness for stress eaters. Stress happens when the feeling of being in control has been lost. Stress eaters use food as a coping mechanism because, while they cannot control outer circumstances, they can control what they put in their mouths.

Pay attention during stressful moments and identify if your immediate reaction is to make a bee-line to the kitchen. You may be compensating the feeling of losing control with eating food.

Your Need to Feel Significant

Another basic human need is the need to feel important. No one wants to live a life where their presence hasn’t made the least bit of impact in the lives of others. We want people to remember us when we are gone, or it will be as if we never existed at all.

Balance is also required here; it is lonely at the top. Being significant requires a degree of responsibility, maybe too much responsibility for one person to handle alone.

Maybe food is giving you that “special feeling” that significance emits. Maybe you feel you are too significant and you are feeding your face as some sort of distraction from the responsibility that comes along with being significant. Next time you are feeling like you are being pulled in many different directions, pay attention to your response.

Your Need for Variety

Sometimes life can become so certain that it becomes boring! Everyone has the need for variety in their lives. For some people, variety comes in the form of food. For good reason! With so many different kinds of foods out there, the choices seem endless! Plus, food is relatively cheap compared to other forms of “entertainment”. So instead of going out to a movie with your spouse or friends and blowing well over $20 on a movie ticket, some popcorn, and a drink; you head to your favorite restaurant or right to your refrigerator, and ease your boredom with your favorite junk food.

Does this sound like you? Pay attention to your actions when you find yourself getting bored. Is your first reaction to head for the pantry or the fridge? Chances are there are many other things you could think of to ease your boredom (like dishes, laundry, a project, etc.); but nothing says “fun” like a brownie fudge sundae!

Your Need to Feel Loved and Connected

Ah yes…the need for love and connection. This is by far the deepest need. Everyone wants to be and feel loved; everyone wants to feel connected. The most damaging emotions someone can experience are rejection and loneliness; and when rejection and loneliness are experienced, our minds work overtime to compensate. For some people, compensation comes in the form of “comfort food”.

Food may be the one variable a rejected person feels they can rely on-it will never say “no” or “not now” or “maybe later”. Food is always there to serve its purpose; and if its purpose for you is to comfort you, your mind knows that it will always be there. So your mind quickly employs the habit of seeking comfort from food; and you end up easing your feelings of rejection and/or loneliness with a box of dough nuts or a pint of ice cream.

Examine Your Needs

Take a moment to monitor your needs and point out those that are not being met. The key to obtaining your freedom from over eating is to know the problem. When you know the problem, you will know the solution.

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