“Emotional eating” is a growing threat to public health, especially to people in the technology, marketing, banking, journalism and security fields, psychiatrist Eric Lin (林耿立) said.
Lin, who works at Heartware Psychiatric Clinic in Taipei, cited the case of a 27-year-old woman, a marketing professional, who would return home from work at 11pm and frequently eat large amounts of potato chips, cakes, fried chicken and other high-calorie food as she watched TV.
The woman said that the food made her feel happy and helped her fall asleep, Lin said.
However, after a night of feasting, she would fast the next day out of “guilt,” leading to a vicious cycle of daytime starvation and nighttime binge eating that caused her to develop acne, irregular menstrual cycles, weight fluctuations and irritability, the doctor said.
Lin said that stress, feelings of uncertainty and late work hours are risk factors for binge eating, anorexia and other eating disorders.
Although not an official diagnosis, emotional eating is a term used to describe eating disorders, and his clinic is seeing about 30 percent more cases every year, he said.
“Almost every person living in the modern world engages in emotional eating,” he said. “I would call it the quintessential disease of modernity.”
Consuming high-calorie food causes a rapid increase in blood sugar and serotonin levels, triggering a feeling of happiness and wellbeing, as well as a soporific effect, which leads tired or stressed people to indulge in the behavior, Lin said.
Among the triggers for emotional eating are stress at work, romantic discord, skipped meals or rapid weather changes, while females who are about a week away from the start of their menstrual period are at greater risk, he said.
Women are more prone to emotional eating than men, because the average woman metabolizes serotonin at a rate between two and three times faster than the average man, Lin said.
The physiological difference could explain why women tend to enjoy sweets and are more likely to frequent all-you-can-eat afternoon tea establishments, he said.
Severe emotional eating can trap people in a vicious cycle of insomnia; depression; rapid weight changes; low energy in the day followed by binging; unstable blood sugar levels; impaired concentration and impaired memory, which could trigger further emotional eating, Lin said.
Treatment for binge eating includes talk therapy and serotonin prescriptions, he said.
The most commonly prescribed class of antidepressants, which work by increasing serotonin, are known as serotonin reuptake inhibitors.
If left untreated, emotional eating could lead to depression, anxiety disorders and Alzheimer’s disease, Lin said.
Lin recommended that people eat three regular meals per day, but said that when skipping a meal is unavoidable, it should be replaced with a high-protein and high-fiber snack instead of junk food, or a combination of carbohydrates, fruit and milk that would stabilize blood sugar levels.
The psychiatrist also said that people should seek to relieve stress with exercise or other alternatives.
Jogging, speed walking and cycling are often suggested by doctors.
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