Does eating disorders born because of our eating habits or because of a stressful lifestyle? How does our diet effect our eating behavior? People might live through rough times and that effects the eating habits of an individual. For instance, if you are a college student and if you are having your finals week, you will most probably order food from outside or either you prefer fast food. In Turkey there are so many dishes have high calorie rate and most probably contains butter or oil too much, that is why we could see mostly the population of old people are more likely to be chubby rather than middle-age population.
Also the size of a meal is important in order to prevent gaining weight. There are so many sugary products selling in markets and especially children consumes them more likelihood than an adolescent or a middle-aged person. This leads children to gain weight and look chubby among their peers. This could lead some health problems to children especially if they genetically carrier of certain disease in future. Also prevent the cavities from children, they must have stay away from sugary products as well.
There is one big enemy of children poisoning them among the fizzy drinks is cola. The parents must not allow their children to consume it and the parents must be a good role model for their children in eating habit. For instance, they must not let their children eat fast food or junk food as a reward or in the school breaks, they must control their eating habit and the parents must prepare healthy snacks for the school break time for their children in order to prevent any sickness or unusual gain weight for the children.
Clinicians and researchers understand addiction in several different ways. Drug addiction has been defined as a chronically relapsing disorder characterized by (1) compulsion to seek and take the drug, (2) loss of control in limiting drug intake, and (3) emergence of a negative emotional state (e.g., dysphoria, anxiety and irritability) reflecting a motivational withdrawal syndrome when access to the drug is prevented; Koob (2013)
Rather than addiction, eating is a kind of habit we can change among any age groups regardless the continuum of the diet is. The more you consume the damage you will receive, it is same for every addictive things as caffeine, alcohol, chocolate, etc. There could be any reason behind we start to consume these things but the side effects could be more damaging than the consuming ratio. Almost 25 % of the college female population admit that they at least do binge eating at least once a week. There could be any reason behind it such as peer pressures, sexual abuse, financial problems…
All around the world, the people who can afford to go to gym or some other sports in order to stay healthy, they are wealthy enough to stay fit and the people who cannot they have limited alternatives as doing workout or jogging outside and so on. The financial problems could affect the eating habits as well. The people who cannot afford to make enough money to eat healthy dietary, they are more likely to eat unhealthy food. Also the people who have financial issues, they are more likely to consume alcohol rather than people who does not have financial problems.
Eating habits are changeable, the person can start from the portion as basic. Change the plate from serving dish to salad plate basically, that could be a good start to make changes in eating behaviors. Most of the people are eating late night snacks, they are immediately turning into calories which is more dangerous than the day time food, because we should take our night time sleep we must sleep after the night time snack. There will not be a movement after the snack and it will turn out as extra calories hat is the reason why it is more dangerous rather than daily snacks.
Mostly bad eating habits have underlying reasons that are often missed, weight gain has so much more to the internal state of the person, and the effect of highly stressed conditions causes hormonal imbalances which in return lead the person to over eating foods with a dense ratio of possessed substances, stress causes a direct and sudden rise in a hormone called Cortisol, when this hormone is released into the bloodstream insulin levels begin to rise up through fat and carbohydrates metabolism increase, so a person living these stressful circumstances on a regular basis will experience these constant cravings for sugary and fatty foods which would eventually lead to weight gain.
Emotions are a very deep and complex state of mind that distinguish humans from the rest of the animal kingdom, and this is not necessarily a positive thing, the human brain has an incredible ability to store past memories from a very young age and redirect them subconsciously into behavior patterns, events such as childhood traumas can result in pains that are carried onto the adult life, due to lack of knowledge of proper inner healing people tend to burry all their darkness with using multiple things to numb whatever they feel, this is the reason emotional related eating habits are so difficult to change, they become so deeply engraved that often the ones who do desire to begin changes give up due to reasons they are not well aware of themselves.
One of the biggest mistakes that occur when transitioning to a healthier life is drawing huge expectations that mostly cannot be met within the presumed time frame, the power of baby steps is usually underestimated and forgotten. Studies have shown that activities such as simply waling for 30 minutes a day can have a great impact on cardio vascular system, it has been proved that walking has a higher success rate compared to running for lowering cortisol levels, this in return will be beneficial in reducing the stored fat; especially abdominal fat, which is known to contribute to a higher risk of having cardio vascular diseases.
All bad habits are a state of mind that have to be put into consideration when thinking about beginning a new chapter regarding health, this does not automatically translate to self-deprivation; on the contrary, maintaining a balance is what defines physical and mental wellbeing. Research has pointed out to the benefits of meditation, the cortisol hormone can be decreased immensely, other issues such as Anxiety, eating disorders, decreased muscle tension, improvement in immunity, high blood pressure, and so on.
Stress disables the body’s ability to properly assess the stage of hanger in which it is in, therefore excessive amount of non-useful calories are consumed throughout the day, this process of fast insulin spike up leads to the sensation of not feeling full thus continuing to repeat the same cycle, the problem with that system is that the body becomes hungry on a cellular level, the body is digesting food but cell are not getting it’s required nutritional intake.
Sugar addiction is real as any other addiction, therefore, as most people experience withdraw symptoms such as headaches, mood swings, and sever cravings depending on the level of sugar addiction they were in, it’s best to gradually include foods with high nutritional value, this can be done through having more naturally colorful ingredients like dried fruits and nuts as snack, although it is true that fruits contain a high level of fructose, it is still considered a better option than sweets due to the amount of vitamins it has, dark green veggies are also another way to follow a more healthy eating pattern, also joining physically active communities is a great method to actually stick to the plans, it has been proven that the chances of you gaining weight is higher when surrounded with people with similar bad habits.
The most important thing within this process is to be mindful of whatever that is entering your body, with keeping in mind how crucial it is to have people who will encourage you to truly understand yourself as a human being.
REFERENCES
- Hebebrand, J., Albayrak, Ö, Adan, R., Antel, J., Dieguez, C., Jong, J. D., . . . Dickson, S. L. (2014). “Eating addiction”, rather than “food addiction”, better captures addictive-like eating behavior. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 47, 295-306. doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2014.08.016
- Wolff, G. E., Crosby, R. D., Roberts, J. A., & Wittrock, D. A. (2000). Differences in daily stress, mood, coping, and eating behavior in binge eating and nonbinge eating college women. Addictive Behaviors, 25(2), 205-216. doi:10.1016/s0306-4603(99)00049-0
