Many people decide to lose weight as a New Year resolution. There are obviously lots of ways of dieting - from joining a local group to crash dieting, plus every kind of diet in between. This blog is not concerned with the mechanics of dieting, but aims to look at WHY we choose to eat what we do. I hope that having some understanding in this will help you to make the lifestyle changes we know we should to maintain a healthy weight that we are happy with.As mum to 3 children I know that my kids will eat when they are bored, not just when they are actually hungry. I also know that a cup of coffee makes me feel I should have a biscuit with it, even when I'm not hungry. So why? Hunger is clearly a physiological need, so why do we eat when we are not hungry and why do we chose what we do?
Eating can be habitual since food is now widely available at all times, as well as the socially accepted norms of mealtimes where there is an expectation that we eat, regardless of whether we are hungry or not. We have a very personal relationship with food - after all its something we take into our bodies and it becomes part of us.
Physiological need
Our brains organise and manage hunger, and when we start and stop eating.
- Seeing, smelling or even thinking about food triggers hunger.
- We start to salivate and our stomachs begin to release gastric juices in anticipation.
- Once we start to eat, the variety of foods we eat (and variety of sensory properties of the foods) can further stimulate eating.
- Our stomach begins to stretch and this is detected by stretch receptors which send signals to the brain.
- The presence of food in our small intestine releases hormones which reduce hunger and increase our sense of fullness. One of the hormones (CCK) is stimulated particularly by the presence of protein and fat digestive products. In fact the presence of protein in the stomach has a restraining effect of our food intake.
- Carbohydrate rich meals further suppress hunger for between 1-3 hours after eating.
- Fat rich meals have no effect on satiety and no subsequent effect on hunger
Habit
Food is widely available in our society - we could eat 24/7 if we wanted. Generally speaking most people eat at set mealtimes, with varying snacks in between times. This has become our cultural habit, but in other poorer societies it is habit to eat only once or twice a day, so we can see from this that there is no physiological need to eat so frequently.
Although most of us eat according to set mealtimes, but some people eat whenever food is available as they simply cannot resist the urge to eat. Others may eat only tiny amounts or avoid food altogether. These are the extremes of overeating, bingeing and purging or anorexia. These are all issues of control which are commonly more powerful than the physiological need for food.
Psychological effect
Comfort eating
Boredom can be a major incentive to eating (as I have witnessed with my kids!), similarly depression and anxiety can also turn us to food as comfort. It is believed that this stems from our childhoods where treats are given to children by parents as reassurance (after hurting themselves, or when they are afraid etc). This links positive feelings and love with food. This can also be seen at events such as funerals where people come together to share food, as a comforting gesture for both those providing the food as well as those eating it. The opposite can be true - in times of great stress some people suffer with loss of apetite and an inability to eat.
We often reward ourselves with 'comfort food' - like teens do when they are revising - crisps and chocolate in each study break, or having biscuits in coffee breaks at work for having dealt with a tedious or difficult task. We sometimes look for foods we associate with good times (like on holiday or a great night out). Conversely we avoid certain foods due to a poor experience such as eating and then vomitting.
Food as love
Similarly if we see how provision of food is linked with loving and caring - like all the best Jewish mothers (myself included) - it is easy to see how when people reject our food it can be hurtful and painful. This can happen with young children when they are learning about food - they can become manipulative and reject food to gain attention, as a control mechanism or to express anger, jealousy or insecurity. Anxious parents may overfeed their children to relieve their own anxiety about them. As parents we need to give thought to how we link food with love - food as a treat to satisfy our emotional needs rather than physiological need.
Food as a replacement for emotions
This has some cross over with comfort eating and food as love.
Think about what is happening when you reach for food...Are you actually hungry (physiologically) or are you attempting to pacify a negative feeling?
Do you feel angry, bored, restless, anxious, sad or stressed? Is this why you think you are hungry?? Try naming this emotion to yourself in this moment - then eat.
In time you will tell yourself 'I dont really need this' - and then you will be able to chose whether or not you go with your eating habit, or chose to ingrain your new habit of feeling the emotion and then coping with it.
The thing to remember is that it takes time to make a new habit - from turn it into the unconscious thing you do, into a new 'muscle memory' so it becomes a new habit. The greater the awareness you bring to your actions when you reach for food, the stronger you will make those new connections in your brain and begin to hardwire a new habit.
To help you cope - try talking it over with someone in your life who is empathetic, supportive and non-judgemental. This is an aspect we will return to in a future blog...
Sensory appeal
We know that the way food looks, smells and tastes can increase our desire to eat. How often do you watch a TV advert about food, or cooking programme and then feel hungry?
We have certain expectations about how a food will taste by its appearance - orange food should be acidic and fruity for example. Likewise the smell of food must meet these expectations - we use this to detect if food is 'off'. Think about how your desire for food changes when you have a cold - your sense of taste and smell is altered and you may then crave something different to eat or drink than normal (always useful information for your homeopath) - or you may not be hungry at all.
The highest number of taste buds are in children who have them on the insides of the cheek and throat as well as over the surface of their tongue. The number of these begin to decrease with adolesence and are considerably reduced by the age of 70. This explains why childrens food preferences are driven by taste. Children have a preference for sweet tastes and avoid bitter tastes (breastmilk is sweet). The liking for sweetness tends to lessen in adolescence (more so in girls than boys). This is commonly when we teach ourselves to like bitter tastes such as beer and coffee.
Taste perception can change in certain circumstances - pregnancy, surgical patients and cancer suffers report an altered ability to taste certain foods. It is suggested that this is due to an altered status of Zinc.
The texture and taste in your mouth provides pleasurable aspects in eating - the feel of the food including its texture, temperature and even any pain it produces (such as 'brain freeze' when eating icecream).
We know that when we are cutting back on salt and sugar that food and drinks won't seemingly taste as nice, but in time the altered taste becomes the norm. This is an important point when you are trying to make changes to your diet - you can either go for broke and make massive changes if you think that will be the only way, or you can gradually cut down on something to allow your tastes to change.
Try a new food (especially one you think you won't like) at least once a day for anywhere between 7 and 30 times. This can re-educate your taste buds into adjusting and then even liking the new food. I'm trying this with kiwi fruit....
Variety of foods
Variety of food also encourages us to eat. Studies of animals and humans have shown that when offered a single food we eat less compared to when we are offered a variety. Humans will also overeat when offered something new - like eating a dinner and then being offered dessert - we manage to find a space to eat it even though we are full (my children maintain we have a dinner stomach and a pudding stomach). It has also been shown that more food is eaten when accompanied by wine and eaten in a social setting (shame!).
Monotony imposes limits on eating, whereas multiple courses which stimulate our senses will encourage greater food intake.
Social influences
Food can be used in a social context to please or displease others. Offering food or drink is recognised as a gesture of hospitality and refusal can be interpretted as a gesture of hostility. This can even extend to eating a food which is disliked to avoid offending the giver (I've eaten cheesey apple tart despite hating it to avoid being 'rude').
In situations where food is scarce, or budgets are tight, wasting food may be socially unacceptable and people may feel obliged to eat everything offered.
How do we get our food habits?
As we have seen, the primary reason for eating is hunger, but that what and when we eat is a reflection on who we are, the society we live in, our upbringing and how we see ourselves.
Our food habits are a product of environmental influences on our culture and are in general resistance to change. The strongest influence on this is likely to be our mothers since these are commonly most invloved with the provision of food whilst we are young. The next major influence is likely to be school where behaviour is learnt from other children or other school adults. Later still foreign travel and a widening social circle will influence our food habits.
Changing our food habits
Although food habits are resistant to change, they are not static and unchangeable. Sometimes change is driven by cultural changes - such as a greater proportion of working woman has lead to a rise in the availability of convenience food. Cultural changes also mean that many families no longer eat their meals together - on average of 3 meals can be eaten outside the home (representing 30% additional expenditure on food) (Taken from a survey by DEFRA, 2001).
The media can effect change on our food habits - through advertising, cookery programmes, newspaper articles or through role models (such as thin woman being healthy and attractive).
A change in our health can change our food habits - such as type 2 diabetes, but this can be a huge struggle for people to maintain despite having a very good health reason for doing so.
One of our biggest drives to change our diet is to change our weight and improve our health and energy. How do we turn 'should' into 'can'?
Think about the strength of your belief that
food and healthy eating are important
- that eating a healthy balanced diet can affect your health
- making a change to food and eating has a major influence on food habits
In summary, making a change to your diet is far greater than just eating more vegetables or ditching carbs. To make a lasting change, think about why and where your food habits come from and how you can change them if they are contributing to a less than healthy lifestyle.
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