Do you eat to live? This is a question many people ponder when they start experiencing difficulty gaining weight or staying healthy. Basically, eating is the consumption of food, usually in small quantities to allow for rapid growth and to give an organism an energy boost. Some foods can be classified as “dead” cells that have accumulated from the skin or intestinal tract, while others are “live” cells that are being sustained by nourishment from somewhere else.
One of the biggest problems with overeating comes from people’s tendency to want instant gratification. In essence, this means that they want to eat foods that are satisfying but can be eaten more quickly. When this happens, a sense of deprivation occurs and the person feels an overwhelming need to consume more food even if they are not actually hungry. Unfortunately, many individuals who suffer from this issue often find themselves not only gaining weight but also becoming severely depressed because they are unable to control their eating behaviors.
The good news is that there are various psychological factors that can lead to overeating that must be addressed. One of the most common is the connection between psychological factors and satiety signals. Basically, satiety signals are signals from the brain stem that allow us to feel full so that we can continue to eat. However, there are instances when the brain stem sends false satiety signals which cause the individual to perceive an abundance of food even if they are not ingesting enough. In these cases, the individual will often eat even when they are not actually hungry because they are psychologically driven to do so.
These psychological factors include both genetics and environmental factors. Generally, individuals who suffer from obesity are genetically predisposed to increased hunger and increased craving for food even when they are not experiencing satiety. Another genetic factor related to obesity is the relative insensitivity of the brain stem to the sensation of hunger. This means that obese individuals cannot recognize hunger signals as effectively as thinner individuals. In addition, obese individuals tend to experience greater episodes of severe cravings for food and may eat until they are uncomfortably full, leading to repeated episodes of binge eating and weight gain.
In order to counter the above mentioned physiological factors that can lead to overeating, it is important for an individual to incorporate a diet that contains a variety of nutrient-rich foods in order to provide the body with the nutrients it needs to properly fuel the digestive system. Additionally, it is important for an individual to eat frequently and to eat large amounts of frequently. Eating frequent and large amounts of food is similar to the way that anorexics eat; however, anorexics usually eat much more often because they lack control over the amount of food they eat. In order to combat this issue, it is highly recommended that individuals begin to eat only small amounts of foods throughout the day and to also engage in frequent exercise sessions.
In addition to the physiological causes of overeating, there are also hidden forces at work in the body that contribute to an individual’s ability to eat. These hidden forces can be strengthened when an individual learns to effectively manage their emotions and to better understand their bodies. One of the best ways to manage one’s emotions is to identify which emotions may be attributing to eating too much and to learn how to deal with these emotions. Similarly, it is important to learn to monitor the subtle effects that environmental factors have on an individual’s appetite and to learn how to appropriately adjust their environment to avoid those factors. In addition, it may be beneficial for an individual to enlist the help of a professional support group in order to gain insight and support when it comes to dealing with emotional and physical aspects of overeating.