The act of eating can be explained from various points of view. What we know most often is biological, but we also need to explore other explanations. Through this article, we’ll show other insights to explain why it’s common to “eat out of boredom. “
It is a behavior that manifests itself in many people, but that is possible to change, this may or may not be necessary. What to keep in mind is that this behavior is not healthy, because overeating, when it becomes a habit, can be quite dangerous.
- We will also delve into the trend that this represents.
- In addition.
- We will focus on the strategies we can use to prevent this behavior and explain when it becomes harmful to health.
We usually eat to get fuel so that the body works properly, although we are integral beings, we are also influenced by other important areas for our well-being, such as the emotional and social sphere, that is why we eat for pleasure, for social influence, etc.
Now let’s look at the meaning of the two associated words. According to the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy, eating means “eating food” and boredom means “fatigue caused by lack of stimulation, distraction or repeated discomfort”.
So eating out of boredom means we eat when our mind is tired; has to do with the emotional realm. In fact, we talk about emotional hunger when we’re looking for food that we can’t solve any other way.
We eat out of boredom because food is also associated with learning patterns, so what drives us to eat can be determined by different circumstances.
When we get bored we enter a vicious circle in which our feelings, thoughts and behaviors intervene, so not knowing what to do leaves us overwhelmed, to break this cycle we look for something to entertain ourselves, in this case food.
Since we do not know what to do with our minds, we can decide to use our body as a defense mechanism to avoid discomfort, so eating out of boredom has the peculiarity of being urgent, having no limits, generating guilt and shame and being a sudden behavior. Physiological hunger is progressive, can wait and does not usually generate negative emotions.
In fact, recent research focuses on the relationship between overeating and emotions. In an article published in The Journal of Psychology and Health, he and his colleagues showed how people eat too much in the face of negative emotions.
We also eat out of boredom because eating is an acquired behavior and we are conditioned to eat at certain times, another reason may be because we unconsciously try to fill the empty spaces with food, then we begin to associate emotions with situations that we are already experiencing. and that leads us to resort to food.
So every time they reproduce, we’ll think about food and food, if we’ve associated food with boredom, it becomes harmful to health when we over-do it, that is, when we make it a habit.
In addition, it can always be eaten out of boredom, because eating behavior causes the release of neurotransmitters like dopamine, responsible for motivated behavior.
On the other hand, there are times when you do not know how to react and you can eat out of boredom, especially in stressful situations, this can be part of an adaptive and natural process, as long as it is circumstantial.
Eating out of boredom is an act that does not always happen consciously, identifying it is already a good first step towards our well-being, how can we avoid it?Let’s look at some strategies to follow:
To do this, we can seek the help of specialized professionals, such as nutritionists, doctors and psychologists, the important thing is to look for strategies that make our lives healthy and non-toxic.
In short, eating out of boredom occurs for different reasons, sometimes fills a void, sometimes as a defense mechanism or through learned behaviors, others to break a vicious circle, others for the satisfaction generated by the release of neurotransmitters, etc. It is important to identify whether or not you really eat too much to act and choose a path that promotes well-being.