October 8, 2024

How Loneliness Can Contribute To Emotional Overeating

Do you know boredom?

Are you sad?

Do you feel lonely?

A lot of people sit with those same feelings, and it can be difficult to understand how to feel better.

Filling the Void

When you deal with emotions like sadness, loneliness, and despair there's often a sense of emptiness that results in a void that needs to be filled.

The questions is: How do you fill it?

There's a good chance that you head to the fridge or visit the pantry.

There's something about food that makes you hopeful that you'll feel whole again, or at least less empty than you did before you had a snack.

If left unchecked, this habit can quickly grow out of control.

It quickly leads to more negative emotions, more guilt, more shame, more emptiness, and it takes a serious emotional toll.

You might resolve to do better, to eat mindfully, or to choose healthier snacks, but the loneliness and feelings of melancholy don't make it an easy task.

Overeating because of stress is perhaps a familiar idea to many people and overeating because of loneliness functions is much the same way.

According to the American Psychological Association, over 1/3 of adults in America regularly overeat because of their emotions. Around the same figure can be cited for Americans living with chronic loneliness.

These are worrying health trends, and they clearly intersect. It's difficult enough to fight one issue, but emotional eating becomes a second issue that stems directly from the first.

Chronic overeating due to emotional eating can lead to a range of health issues, including heart disease, lifestyle cancers, stroke, high blood pressure, and a higher risk of diabetes.

The Risk of Loneliness

Disordered eating comes in many forms, but loneliness is a serious problem for so many people. Food is sustenance, it's something your body needs for fuel; it nourishes and nurtures your body too; and it's the most obvious way to fill a physical void.

So, when you're dealing with an emotional void, it's easy to think that food is an effective way to fill it.

That's not the craving you have, though, but as a result, feeding the wrong craving is creating a cycle for a new craving. It's furthering the potential for food addiction. What you really need is personal connections, a partner, a friend, an online interaction; you simply need to connect with someone on any level. Whether it's to talk about the soccer match you're watching, discuss the latest baseball scores, or the newest series you're bing watching.

Studies have shown that when you're looking for a nourishment food can't provide due to loneliness, you overeat trying to fill it regardless. It isn't just that loneliness is leading to overeating, it's the specific foods that loneliness drives you to eat.

Unfortunately, studies show that social isolation and loneliness lead to an increase in sugar consumption. As a result, you start to feel terrible because of the regular sugar crashes, which leads you to eat more sugar. Before you know it, you're in a vicious cycle.

Overcoming Loneliness and Emotional Eating

The good news is you can break the cycle.

The easiest way is to find ways to fill your time – to fill that hole in your soul with something beneficial, something other than food.

The first thing to address is your lack of connection to others. Meaningful connections are like medicine without the harmful side effects. If you don't have a support network, loneliness is a likely outcome. So, start by looking for person-to-person connections with real people with whom you have similar interests. Online forums are another option that you can use to connect with people who have similar hobbies.

Do you love a specific television show? A fandom can be a powerful support network. Are you a gardening enthusiast? There's a forum for that too.

Are you a late-night writer? There are websites where you can publish your work and gain an audience of similar people to make friends with.

Fueling your personal connections is the best way to fill that loneliness void, and once you start doing this, you will notice you feel less inclined to overeat.

While you start this journey, though, you should keep healthy snacks (e.g., strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, almonds, walnuts, macadamia nuts, and Brazil nuts) around the house so that you choose a better quality foods to satiate your hunger cues while you break the habit.

Loneliness and boredom often work together to create emotional overeating, so seeking connection and giving yourself something to do provides you with a two-pronged way to attack and overcome the problem.

Food won't make you feel better, but feeding your soul will.

dhf

If you liked this content, check out my Substack Newsletter "Digital Detox" at: https://theunreliablemind.substack.com/p/digital-detox