We all need food to survive and one of our greatest pleasures is the variety of foods available to us to satisfy this need. Most of us are able to easily differentiate between an array of tastes and smells, and because of this we’ve turned the task of eating into an elaborate ritual where we endeavour to regularly surround ourselves with all kinds of foods. Almost every day we’re tempted to eat much more than what’s necessary, or to indulge in poor diet “comfort foods.” Our relationship to food can become completely out of phase, should we be suffering through particular emotional changes or issues. Our natural rhythm is for us to eat several times every day – and unless we’re quite careful, inattention can get the best of us and an unbalanced diet can quickly become our habit, thereby leading to many potentially serious health problems in the future.

We can see the gravity of the problem by looking at our population as a whole. The wide-spread problem of obesity in society – and many other problems as well, can be closely linked to what is commonly known as “emotional eating.” When people are suffering from the worst form of this “hunger,” they’re eating to deal with personal issues or to satisfy their never-ending emotional hunger. The cute phrase we often hear is “comfort food” which is a way of describing the process of eating to try and replace, repair or help you forget something else. Unfortunately, our “right now” type of society means that we have instant access to all kinds of ready-made foods, processed products with little actual nutritional value and high sugar content.

It’s important to recognize whether you are an emotional eater or not. If you find yourself turning to ice creams, pastas and fast foods during times of upheaval, then you are just feeding your addiction. You are not thinking about holistic health solutions or holistic nutrition, but rather going for what you believe to be a quick fix, which in effect is just aggravating the problem. You might feel a short-term comfort or “high” but the consequent low will just make you focus even more on the issues which were there in the first place and have not gone away.

Realize that it may not be easy to overcome your food addiction and your emotional eating habits. The first step is certainly recognizing that you have a problem, but you may need the help of a trained health professional or a support group to intervene to break the cycle permanently. One thing is for sure, we will face challenges and emotional difficulties throughout our lives, but we should try and maintain a physically healthy life as much as possible to enable us to ride this roller coaster best.

Dr. Elson Haas of the Preventative Medical Center tells us that we will need “greater attentiveness and a willingness to deal openly with emotions and other adversities that may block our way to healing.” Analyze your diet very carefully and start planning to kick your sugar addiction, which may well be at the core of the issue. Chances are that whatever is holding you back and helping to create your challenges can be diet related, and if you are an emotional eater, the kind of fuel that you put in your body will not be able to provide you with the mental and physical tools to help you do battle.