Food and Feelings
Emotion in Eating vs Emotional Eating
Food is emotional.
There is no denying that. But there’s a vast difference between “eating your emotions” and “invoking your emotions” when it comes to lifting that fork to your mouth.
One of my absolute favorite things to do is share a delicious dinner with the people I love. Give me a table in an invitingly lit room, a human (or humans) to share intelligent conversation and laughter with, a glass of wine, a steak….. and I’m a happy girl.
That’s because food is emotional. The emotions it’s invoking are love, community, and connection.
Culturally, food is a focal point of family and community, which is vastly present in other countries. If you look across the areas of the world where life longevity is filled with centurions, one of the stand-outs in their lifestyles are families gathering together to cook and eat. It’s a means to strengthen a bond with one another, while experiencing fresh, high-quality food that one or more people had a hand in creating.
This is what food is supposed to do for us.
I grew up in a heavy Italian family. Not heavy in a physical sense (in fact, no one was heavy in that part of my family), but heavy in that no one spoke English, large gatherings were a weekly staple, and freshly made food (and a good amount of it) was the norm. We would sit around a large table playing poker while munching on the feast we prepared together.
Those memories of us laughing, eating, drinking are cemented into my brain. Because of how they made me feel. Because of emotion.
Where we turn “eating emits emotion” to “emotional eating” is when we are stressed or anxious or depressed about things in our lives and we turn to food as a crutch to “comfort” us in those troubling moments.
We aren’t really eating with purpose here. There is no value attached to what’s going into your mouth. There’s no long-term memories created. There’s no visceral feeling of connection or proudness of creating something from scratch and sharing it with the people you love. It’s just a matter of “make me feel better,” by eating something (anything) that might seem like the quick hit of palatable taste is going to appease our pain.
But does blindly shoveling food ever take the pain away?
No.
Even if it’s a donut?
Nope. (Well, maybe.)
Does it make you feel happy or joyful after you’re done?
Also, no.
The same goes for alcohol. There’s a delicious full-bodied glass of wine with dinner to savor and sip and enjoy with the person or people you’re with and then there’s sucking down drinks every night to “deal with your day.”
Two entirely different entities- the latter of which will never leave you feeling, for lack of a better word, good.
Food is emotional, and that’s why we’re so tied to it.
The key is to pick which one of those emotional ties to attach it to. (Hint: not the second one.)
So how do you do that?
By FEELING the positive, connective emotional-tie more often than the negative, fill-a-void one.
And you do this by the following:
Create your own meals, at home, with good quality ingredients, and do that with your partner, spouse, kids, family, friends. You work together and enjoy it together so it becomes more of a connective experience.
Host weekend “dinners” and have friends come gather and cook with you.
Take your kids food shopping with you and have them involved in the process, of both purchasing and creating.
Take a cooking class with friends or family.
Travel and experience different cultural cuisines.
At night, when you feel stressed from your day, grab your favorite wine or cocktail glass, fill it with ice, and make a mocktail (or even just add sparkling water and a splash of juice or whatever non-boozy add-in or even kombucha if you like it). NIGHTLY DRINKING TO DECOMPRESS IS MERELY A BAD HABIT. Making and holding a drink in the same glass and replacing your wine with that will, over time, do the same for you, and will become what you prefer once you realize how much better you feel every day.
Trash all the processed junk in your house and don’t buy it. Instead, prep healthy snacks, so that if you do need to eat something out of habit, there are better options.
Find a therapist or seek other means to deal with the issues causing anguish in your life.
If you’re feeling strung out, instead of running to the fridge, grab a friend or someone in your house and go for a walk instead.
Fall back on traditional experiences. An example is “Sunday Dinners” with extended family. (Lives are so busy and hectic now that we are a grab n’go society. Find a way to chill and relax and add value to the act of cooking.)
Shop at farmers markets. The vibe alone exudes connection with community and others via food.
These are just a few examples of how to invoke emotion with food, in the way that optimizes your life, rather than hinder it. And all of these methods work in changing your perspective of food and how it can still be tied to your feelings, but in a productive way.
I’ve worked with humans for quite some time now, in both nutrition and exercise. And as I guide them through their nutritional needs, I refuse to tell a single person that they “can’t have something.” Because I know the reason they keep “having these somethings” is largely due to their emotional connection to the distress in their lives, therefore attaching that emotion to sweets or snacks or over-portioned indulgences, as a means to appease. I can’t solve another person’s personal problems. But I can give you methods, ideas and plans on how to create a different mindset around food, tipping your habits toward the preferred emotional attachment and slightly away from the damaging one.
And, remember, no one is telling you not to eat.
Eating healthy doesn’t have to be boring, restrictive, or a death sentence. But drowning your feelings in food can have lifelong consequences.
If you need help with your nutrition or mindset around food, email me and I can give you more details about my coaching plans.
CHEERS.