Anxiety and food diets: anxiety about eating or eating because of anxiety?

When you have a bad day and you come home tired and overwhelmed looking to feel better in your surroundings, you often choose to open the pantry and start compulsively eating what you want most, without thinking about what you are doing. This has happened to almost all of us at times. The problem lies when this situation becomes a habit that you end up incorporating into your life day after day. You begin to gain weight significantly and cause imbalances in your body and your metabolic system (hypertension, cholesterol, triglycerides...) that can significantly affect your health. For many people, eating becomes a way to alleviate anxiety and stress , but eating to feel less anxious also often generates a feeling of guilt that makes us feel bad about ourselves and thus begins a vicious circle, until that we realize that we have to find a solution.

First of all, we must know the origin of our tensions to remedy it and thus be able to control this anxiety and compulsive desire to eat.

There are many things that can help us achieve this: relaxation and meditation exercises, regular physical exercise, taking natural food supplements that help us relax and feel better, improving self-esteem with the help of professionals and also improving eating habits. Furthermore, if this situation has led us to be overweight or obese, it will be important to follow a weight loss diet until we reach an optimal weight that does not put our health at risk. However, following a weight loss diet, especially in the initial phase, when we still feel a lot of cravings for food, can be complicated. Actually, one of the main problems of people who are on a weight loss diet is being able to “control” the desire to eat. A population study* has shown that 53% of Spanish women suffer from anxiety when dieting and this is the main reason for not following it. And this connection between food and emotional well-being is becoming increasingly clear. In fact, in the healthy eating pyramid published by the Spanish Society of Community Nutrition (SENC), emotional balance already appears as a basic element to promote healthy eating, and the maintenance of body weight at appropriate levels . Therefore, achieving that emotional balance will be key to our well-being and health. * Study carried out by Nutrition Center among the more than 7,500 people included in their database, through the more than 2,000 pharmacies they have throughout Spain.