Emotional Eating

I asked this question at a talk over the weekend: why do we eat?

There was a lot of silence. Finally, someone said: because we need to eat to live.

My response: I bet that's the LAST reason why most of us eat! Then everybody starting nodding their heads in agreement.

Sure, eating to live is the basic physiologic reason to eat. The fact is, though, that because we live in a society with so much abundance of food, we often eat for emotional, rather than physical reasons. It doesn't matter if we eat an apple or a cream puff. If we're not physically hungry, our body doesn't need those calories, and they end up getting stored as fat.

If you find this topic interesting, check out my online article at Today's Diet and Nutrition: http://www.todaysdietandnutrition.com/nov07exclusiveemotional.shtml Let me know what you think!