EMOTIONAL NEED FOR FOOD®

Everyone likes to think that they know why they eat the way they do. They probably don’t. It’s just what they have always done. That’s just how they eat. However, they have been eating for emotional reasons. We’re going to call it an “Emotional Need For Food®” or “ENF®”. See if you can relate to this type of eating.

An Emotional Need For Food or ENF is when a person simply “must have” a certain food; when a certain food is “irresistible”; when a person says she “just loves to eat”; when a person has already eaten too much, but simply must have more food; when the food looks so delicious that you must eat it all; when you know you’re overeating, but you do it anyway; when you just “have to” taste a certain food, such as a snack of peanuts, potato chips or candy and put them in your mouth; when you simply must have “one more bite”; when you take the kids for fast food and you “have to have” some of their fries; when you’re not happy unless you’re really full; when you feel frustrated, depressed or anxious and nothing can help you out but food; when you know that you’re overweight and that you shouldn’t eat any more food, but you eat more food anyway. It’s your ENF that keeps you 30 pounds overweight.

Everyone knows when she is eating for emotional reasons. An overweight person knows she should not be eating the foods she is eating or in the amounts that she is eating, but she still eats that way. She simply can’t help it. She knows it will keep her at the weight she says she can’t stand, but she does it any way. She is eating for emotional reasons. She may never have thought about it as emotional eating. She thought it was just how she ate.