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There is too much food around us, and we live in a state of stress, not knowing how to listen to our own body. This means that many people eat when they are not hungry at all. What are the reasons that call us to the table?
Without balance in nutrition, there will be no balance in life. How to make appetite an ally of well-being? The task is not easy, because the feeling of hunger has many faces.
The very first meal is the meaning of life
“Relationships with food are the first very intimate experience of bodily contact between a person and another person,” says psychoanalyst Ksenia Korbut. “There is such closeness between mother and child during feeding that they become almost a single being. Only gradually does the infant begin to perceive himself as separate from his mother, to distinguish “I” from “not-I”.
If this acquaintance with reality fails, the child, and then the adult, will not acquire a sense of separateness and isolation of his own body, its boundaries will seem fuzzy to him, he will poorly distinguish between “inside” and “outside”, and food will not be experienced by him as something external.
It would be easier if the matter was limited to physiology: then we would eat until our hunger was satisfied
Parting with the mother’s breast (or bottle), the child receives the first experience of autonomy. “Both the mother and the child are anxious in such a situation,” continues Ksenia Korbut. – This experience will be traumatic if the mother has little – or, conversely, too obsessive – attention to the child, if she is depressed, or if he does not feel sufficiently protected with her. In the future, his relationship with food will be unregulated.”
“Only if we regain our feelings, listen to our emotions, can we restore harmonious relationships with food and, therefore, with ourselves,” says Olga Dolgopolova, a gestalt therapist.
Physiological hunger: the need for food
Without the calories and nutrients we get from food, we cannot function either physically or intellectually. The feeling of hunger tells us that it’s time to “refuel”. How does hunger manifest itself?
“When I’m hungry, I can’t concentrate and I lose the ability to think,” admits Nadya. Some people experience excitement followed by irritation.
“I feel weak, my stomach growls, I become irritable,” says Elena. Biologically, these symptoms correlate with complex and poorly understood mechanisms. There are many hypotheses on this score: a decrease in amino acid reserves, processes associated with liver metabolism, a signal emanating from adipose tissue. The strongest stimulus is considered to be a 7% drop in blood sugar levels.
It would be easier if the matter was limited to physiology: then we would eat until our hunger was satisfied. But we are also endowed with five senses and reason – and this greatly complicates the situation.
Sensory hunger: passion for food
Since in human civilization the preparation and eating of food has been elevated to the rank of ritual and almost art, the feeling of hunger is inseparable from appetite. Appetite, which Ozhegov’s Dictionary (RAS, 1993) defines as “the desire to eat”, serves as a harbinger of the pleasure that we will receive from the satisfaction of this desire. It is enough to smell the dish being prepared, to see the cakes in the window of a pastry shop, to hear the crackling of oil in a frying pan – and our saliva begins to flow.
“The sight of the cake stimulates the appetite, causes the release of saliva and a large amount of insulin,” comments Dr. Gerard Apfeldorfer, a French psychiatrist and nutritionist. – We have not yet brought a piece to our lips, and the body is already ready to digest the cake it has seen. Conversely, the released insulin and hormones, sharpening desires, make this cake even more seductive.
With the help of food, we satisfy the need for love, console ourselves and want to relive pleasant moments from the past.
Most of all, the appearance and smell excite the appetite. Then, of course, taste – it is not for nothing that they say that appetite comes with eating. Taste buds make us eat more than we need, just for the sake of taste pleasure.
“Taste and smell are the most ancient of our five senses: they mobilize the primitive areas of the brain,” continues Gerard Apfeldorfer. – Moreover, they are inseparable – anatomically and physiologically – from our affects and from our memory. Each taste sensation is automatically attached to a certain emotion, an affective reaction of pleasure or displeasure, which gives it a special color.
Emotional hunger: food cravings
The hunger of the heart is added to the hunger of the receptors. This is about him the story of the madeleine cake, told by Marcel Proust in In Search of Lost Time.
Childhood memories are associated with specific foods or dishes, and we eat them not so much for the sake of taste, but to feel again the comfort, love and warmth that surrounded us then. We transfer these emotions to food, and this transfer has nothing to do with the feeling of hunger. The same thing happens when, with the help of food, we want to disperse boredom, brighten up loneliness, drown out anxiety, soften anger.
“In all these cases, refreshment is a way to get rid of an unpleasant thought, overcome melancholy, alleviate suffering, since the feeling of fullness is directly associated with a feeling of love, well-being and security,” explains Ksenia Korbut.
In the case of bulimia, which is considered an extreme, pathological form of emotional hunger, food intake acts as an instant antidepressant. Such people, not knowing how to live their emotions, are fenced off from sensations.
So, we don’t just eat to get the calories we need. With the help of food, we satisfy the need for love, console ourselves and protect ourselves, seek taste pleasures and want to relive pleasant moments from the past. What is your relationship with food?