Emotional Eating and Anorexia

When you are feeling sad and teary eyed, do you 

grab something to eat to make you feel better?

A cookie perhaps?

Or more than one or two?

Just a little something sweet to cheer yourself up?

Or maybe your medicine of choice is a warm and 

comforting bowl of soup.  Something creamy and delicious.

Or something savory like a slice or two of pizza ...

And wine ~ maybe a glass or two or more.

After all, red wine is supposed to have good health

benefits right?

After all that emotionally charged eating you have put on

a few extra pounds, or unfortunately many extra pounds.

Then you panic when you step on the scale and you reach

for the latest, newest way to drop those excess pounds.

Then there is the other side of the coin.  A side that I know only too

well.  Anorexia.  I have battled anorexia twice in my life, and

both times it was during an emotional crisis.  

My first battle with anorexia was when I was 11 years old.  It 

happened while my Mom was in the hospital for extended visits.  I

discussed this topic in a previous post.  You can read it here.

I battled anorexia once again in early adulthood.

Just as it is a battle to keep from eating too much, it is also a very

real battle for an anorexic to eat enough.    Mealtime is an empty

plate.  Day after day.  Then the pounds begin to slip away.  After a

while you reach the stage of being too thin.  Yes, despite the old

adage you can never be too rich or too thin, you indeed can be too

thin.  And I was.

My friends would beg me to eat something, anything.

Anorexia for me at least, was always about control.  

Whenever I was in a situation where I had no control over

the outcome, I would stop eating.  It gave me a sense of

comfort just the same way eating an extra cookie or two

gives comfort to someone else.  

For some young women anorexia stems from a desire to 

achieve unrealistic bodies.  Girl are bombarded with

pictures in magazines and online of models who either starve

themselves or have been airbrushed to unreal proportions

or both.  Once they get on the diet slide it's a very 

slippery slope.  Every calorie is an enemy.  

The truth of the situation is that we all need food to

nourish our bodies.  Some of us use food as a salvo and

others deny food for the same reason.  

While I don't profess to having a definitive answer to anyone

battling either side of this coin, I can tell you what I have 

learned.

Life is about balance.  None of us are perfect or will we ever

be.  What each of us can do is to find a balance in life.

Work a little, play a little.  Find your passion in life and 

concentrate on it.  Spend some time in prayer each day and

be thankful for your blessings.  And lastly, focus on others

and not so much on yourself.  When you focus on helping

others your own problems are lessened.

Thanks for listening.

Big Texas Hugs,

Susan and Bentley