Stress eating can lead to serious health problems

MANY people turn to comfort food when they are experiencing stressful situations. Most often these comfort foods contain a lot of sugar and fat. ey are foods that are not good for your health.

Such snacks taken in moderation can be harmless, but if taken frequently to deal with long-term stressful situations or if snacking becomes the main way in which you deal with stress, they can lead to some serious health problems.

Eating as a way of dealing with or responding to stressful situations is not an effective way of dealing with stress. It may provide some temporary gratification, but after eating or over-eating, the stressful situation remains. ere are healthier and more effective ways of handling stress.

Stress eating is a pattern of eating where a person consumes food not because he or she is hungry, but as a means of helping deal with stressful situations.

ere may be other situations other than stressful situations where a person eats not to satisfy hunger, but for some other reason, such as anger, loneliness, sadness or plain boredom.

Causes

ere are both psychological and physical causes of stress or emotional eating.

With some people emotional eating is a learned behaviour. During childhood, their parents may have given them treats such as sweets to help them deal with a tough day or situation or as a reward for doing something good.

Over time, the child who reaches for a biscuit after getting a bad grade on a test may become an adult who eats a full box of biscuits after a rough day at work. In this situation, the roots of emotional eating are deep and can make breaking the habit challenging.

Eating can also just be a means of distracting yourself from the stressful situations you are facing.

ere are also some physical reasons why stress and strong emotions can cause a person to overeat.

Initially, stress causes the appetite to decrease so that the body can deal with the situation.

If the stress does not go away, a hormone called cortisol is released. Cortisol increases appetite and can cause someone to overeat.

High cortisol levels from stress can increase food cravings for sugary or fatty foods. Stress is also associated with increased hunger hormones, which may also contribute to cravings for unhealthy foods.

Consequences

Persistent stress eating can lead to a number of health problems. One of the most obvious is obesity, which itself can put you at risk of other diseases or conditions. Stress eating can supply your body with more calories than it requires, leading to excess weight gain.

Consumption of food that is loaded with sugar and fat can lead to heart disease, which is always serious, and hypertension (high blood pressure).

If you turn to sugary foods whenever you are feeling stressed can lead to insulin resistance, which could result in diabetes, a serious condition that is incurable, lasts for life and can cause serious damage to a number of body organs.

Some people are pre-diabetic, which means they are pre-disposed to developing diabetes. Turning to chocolate or other sweet foods due to stressful situations can tip the balance for such people resulting in their developing diabetes, with the long-term ill-health that tends to go with it.

Overeating can also adversely affect your digestive system, especially if you suffer from acid reflux. is condition can be caused by stress and by overeating, particularly if you eat a lot of food that is laden with fat.

Stress eating at night may result in acid reflux when you are in bed, resulting in disturbed sleep, which may cause you further stress.

Because comfort food does not effectively deal with stress, the continued stress coupled possibly with a poor body image due to obesity brought on by overeating or eating too much sugary and fatty food, may result in depression.

Overcoming stress eating

Some people may not realise that they are stress eating. e tendency to turn to food for comfort may become such a standard response to stressful situations that no thought is given to what you are doing and the negative effects of it.

If you eat outside normal meal times, you perhaps should ask yourself why this is and whether it is a reaction to stress or to some other emotional situation.

e first step in overcoming stress eating is to recognise that you are eating or snacking to take your mind off a stressful situation and to identify the stressful situation you are reacting to.

Having identified what is causing you stress, you can consider alternative healthier means of coping with it, such as going for a walk, discussing the problem with someone else, whether it be a relative, friend or counsellor, or engaging in meditation.

Healthy habits such as exercise, having enough sleep and good nutrition all help you to cope with stress. Stressful situations are unavoidable. It is how we respond to these situations that makes all the difference to how we cope with them.

If you are using eating as a response to a stressful situation, it may be one particular stressful situation you are reacting to or you may find that it is your common response to other stressful situations as well.

Whichever is the case, it is advisable to find better ways of dealing with whatever it is that is causing you stress. is is because even bingeing on chocolate, for instance, to comfort yourself in a single extremely stressful situation can have long-term negative repercussions on your health.

Many people do not realise this until their health has already been adversely affected. If you are eating or snacking frequently, it is advisable to ask yourself why this is and to turn to healthier alternatives.

e information in this article is provided as a public service by the Cimas iGo Wellness programme, which is designed to promote good health. It is provided for general information only and should not be construed as medical advice. Readers should consult their doctor or clinic on any matter related to their health or the treatment of any health problem. To contact the iGo team, e-mail: igo@cimas.co.zw or WhatsApp 0772 161 829 or phone 024-2773 0663.