What emotions do we eat?

Abstract

The purpose of this article was to draw attention to the emotional aspects present in most of the eating disorder’s patients, beyond the information related to caloric needs, frequency of meals or dietary principles, with the exploration of the main life stages that contribute to the development of eating patterns. The focus was on the intrauterine period and the first five years of a child’s life lifestyle impact, as well as family nutrition patterns. Awareness of the need to explore eating patterns developed in childhood and the unconscious emotions associated with eating behaviors generates a more complete look at the set of factors that generate and maintain overweight. Identifying emotional factors and coping/protective mechanisms can increase the success chances of a diet in overweight or obese patients. Thus, each nutrition professional can create his own set of questions to explore these emotional aspects, important in identifying protective patterns that can lead to increasing body weight or slow down, even stop the positive impact of a healthy personalized diet plan.