What should those afraid to step on the scale do
In all scientific teachings, the body is divided into three: psychological, physical and chemical body. In the quantum approach from which complementary medicine originates, the body has five dimensions. Nutrition, being metabolic and vital, has a psychology just like all our other behaviors. We call this "nutrition psychology."
All basic needs have a pleasure-giving quality, and hormones are involved in every event that gives pleasure. The body's integration with the nervous, lymphatic and vascular systems works together with the immune and hormonal systems. The center that controls our emotions (the limbic system) also sits at the top of this whole, at the control level. Eating is not merely filling the stomach to obtain energy; it is a multifactorial, interactive act shaped by teaching, tradition, regional customs, habits, hormones, and the influence of the limbic system.
THERE ARE EVEN THOSE WHO VOMIT
If we think about it, one of the first changes observed in depressed patients is a decrease in appetite. A baby angry at its mother, or wanting to punish its parents, refuses to eat its food. A man or woman who has been abandoned soothes their sorrow with food. Food eaten during joyful times tastes different. Couples in love prepare meals together. Unhappy people constantly eat in front of the television at night without noticing what they're eating. A girl whose mother is overweight may make herself vomit as she grows up to avoid gaining weight. There are those who avoid pregnancy in order not to gain weight. It's possible to multiply these examples. With these few examples, we can see just how powerful a bond exists between human psychology and nutrition.
The fact that body beauty and the issue of being overweight or thin are constantly in the public conversation, with their popularity growing wave after wave, has made it more necessary than ever to consider nutrition psychology today. If psychology is involved, this should of course be the domain of psychologists experienced in the subject and physicians trained in nutrition psychology. Because eating behavior disorder is not a disease but a state of dysregulation. This is the job of physicians who provide regulation treatment, working together with psychologists.
DESPITE ALL WARNINGS...
So, in which situations should a person's relationship with food be evaluated and approached from a psychological perspective?
- If a person habitually eats constantly without feeling hungry
- If their food shopping is exaggerated
- If they read the label of every product they buy as if preparing a thesis
- If they can never bring themselves to step on the scale, avoiding finding out their weight
- If they go from dietitian to dietitian
- If they continue eating uncontrollably despite being full
- If they eat unknowingly or uncontrollably during emotional fluctuations (when unhappy, angry, unable to speak, depressed...)
- If they hide themselves under their clothes
- If they exaggeratedly declare that they're happy with their excess weight
- If, despite all warnings, they eat aggressively, carelessly and unappealingly
- If they don't eat themselves but constantly feed others
- If they behave overly meticulously about eating healthily, provoking reactions from those around them
- If every meal becomes an operation in the name of eating healthily
- If they constantly go hungry in order not to gain weight
- If they've spent their life trying to lose weight
- If they constantly calculate calories
- If they have a constant fear of gaining weight
- If they eat only one type of food
- If they can't eat in front of others and only eat alone
- If they experience anxiety that they'll immediately gain weight from the food they eat
- If they feel guilty after eating
- If they hate eating
- If they lose weight despite eating enough and there being no underlying illness or disorder
- If they can't derive any pleasure from eating, or conversely, become exaggeratedly happy
- If they eat and then vomit
CEREMONY
If a person cannot reach their ideal weight despite sufficient exercise, water intake and healthy eating, and many similar eating behavior disorders exist, an underlying psychological cause can be considered—but to say so, it is absolutely necessary to first rule out any organic disorder or interference field that could be causing the condition.
To understand what's disordered, one must first know what's healthy. The basic characteristics of healthy eating:
- It is a varied, rotating diet.
- It means taking care to consume a different core food group each day of the week, but without being obsessive or fixated even about this.
- It means being able to stop eating once we're full, even if the plate is still half full.
- It means eating at mealtimes—that is, at the times when we feel hungry according to our biological rhythm.
- It means adopting a diet free of refined (processed) foods.
- It means not snacking standing up, and eating our food by chewing and savoring it.
- It means staying away from ready-made foods and consuming natural ones.
- It means making healthy eating a way of life rather than something limited to certain periods.
- It means being aware that eating is a basic need carried out with happiness.
Eating is not simply pouring something into the stomach; it is a ceremony carried out by savoring flavor. Outside of this framework, eating patterns that are pursued persistently and lead to disorders in a person's gastrointestinal system, resulting in weight gain or weight loss, call for an investigation into the underlying nutrition psychology.
You can find more information on this and similar topics in my book "Güzel, Mutlu ve Sağlıklı" (Beautiful, Happy and Healthy).