Are you really hungry?

            It's a week night, it's been a long day and your watching some TV, relaxing from your stressful day. You suddenly want something sweet and chocolate. You see the chocolate cake sitting on your counter. You want it but you feel like you shouldn't. These feelings haven't stopped you before though. Before you grab a piece of that chocolate cake (or the entire cake) ask yourself, are you really hungry?
             In a society that has an abundance of food we tend to center our lives around food. It present when we celebrate, grieve, and when we give service. This is not a bad thing. What is bad is when we do not understand hunger. We are blessed to have food at our disposal when others go to bed hungry. Hunger is virtually unknown to many people. For the first time in history the number of overweight people globally exceeds the 1.02 billion people who are undernourished and hungry. (Foss, 2011) People confuse boredom and desire for food with hunger. They are different. Learn to ask yourself am I hungry enough to eat an apple(or some type of healthy/ less desirable food)? If you answer is yes, then eat the apple. If no, then do not eat a thing you're not actually hungry.
             I recently did a research paper on the relationship between stress and weight gain. I found that psychological stress can lead to overall weight gain by stimulating an increase in consumption of high fat and sweet foods. This is what we know as stress or emotional eating. Some individuals are more susceptible to stress eating than others. One study suggested that this was due to an inability to differentiate “hunger cues from emotional arousal.” People more prone to stress-related eating were less able to cope with the stress. One study illustrated that people with higher waist- hip ratio subjects were “characterized by poorer coping skills.” (Moyer, 1994) These people seemed to indicate a more helpless reaction to stress. Individuals prone to stress eating are more likely to regain weight after successful weight loss than their non-emotional eater counterparts (Moyer, 1994).
          Don't freak out though. Stress will not make you gain weight if you learn to deal with it. I found a recent study illustrating that mindfulness training (a program involving yoga stretches, body scan, sitting meditation, loving kindness, and forgiveness) was "successful in increasing awareness and responsiveness, reducing anxiety and eating in response to external cues (such as: emotions or seeing food), and tended to reduce eating in response to emotions.” (Daubenmier, 2011)  Mindful practices may improve the ability of people to cope with stress without using comfort food to manage stress. Mindful practices help in the reduction of stress eating which helps promote a better distribution of body fat over time. Results showed that participants who received mindfulness training stabilized their weight among those who were obese. Obese subjects who did not receive mindfulness training gained an average of 3.74 pounds (Daubenmier, 2011). This study shows that stress related eating does have a detrimental effect on weight and that it can be controlled through learning more effective coping techniques than through food.
             My overall message to those of you looking to reach or maintain a healthy weight is to learn to distinguish when and why you are eating. Look to see if you can find a pattern in when you indulge in unhealthy foods. If you can identify why you are eating those foods at that time, you can find a way to stop it. Try some yoga, take a walk, or work on a new hobby if you find it's because of stress or boredom. Being healthy is about being aware of your body.

Works Cited:
Foss, Brynjar, and Sindre M. Drystad. "Stress in Obesity: Cause or Consequence?"
Medical Hypotheses 77.1 (2011): 7-10. Print.

Jennifer Daubenmier, Jean Kristeller, Frederick M. Hecht, et al., “Mindfulness
Intervention for Stress Eating to Reduce Cortisol and Abdominal Fat among Overweight
and Obese Women: An Exploratory Randomized Controlled Study,” Journal of Obesity,
vol. 2011, Article ID 651936, 13 pages, 2011. doi:10.1155/2011/651936

Moyer, A. E., C. M. Grilo, N. Cummings, L. M. Larson, and M. Rebuffé-scrive. "Stress-
induced Cortisol Response and Fat Distribution in Women." Obesity Research 2.3
(1994): 255-62. Print.