Overeating

Somewhere between anorexia and bulimia lay the rest of us. We may not have the view of our body that anorexics have of theirs, but there still may be some self-deception going on when we look in the mirror. We may not binge to the extent it makes us sick, but we may still look at a plate after we have emptied it and feel regret, or not remember actually putting all that food into our mouths.

Society pulls us in two directions. On one hand is the army of dieticians, doctors and nurses rightly telling us that obesity is an epidemic in the UK. The newspapers and television also promote the belief that to be thin is to be cool, beautiful or desirable. On the other hand we have unlimited access to rich foods high in calories. Part of the problem is what dieticians call ‘calorie density’; you get a lot more calories in an ounce of chocolate than you do in an ounce of celery. In our fast-food society there is a lot of calorie dense food not only available relatively cheaply, but assertively advertised.

Calculate your body mass index

Trying to fight the cravings the advertisers trigger in us and rigidly keep to the recommended daily calorie count of 2,000 for women and 2,500 for men is hard, and obsessively monitoring our BMI (a measure of how our height and weight relate to each other) is difficult too. Use the BMI calculator to check your body mass index.

Calorie recommendations are only guidelines some people will need quite a bit more or less, and BMI is a better measure of how much obesity there is in a population rather than in an individual. This can turn eating, one of our most basic mechanisms of self-care, into an almost clinical procedure.

The problem might be that in listening carefully to the medical professions, media and advertisers we have stopped listening to the most important voice in deciding what to eat – our own.

The different types of hunger

Paediatrician and Zen meditation teacher Jan Chozen Bays suggests that there are seven different types of hunger:

•      Eye hunger. It's the old saying about ‘eyes being bigger than the stomach’, if the dessert trolley had its contents mixed together in a liquidiser would it look so good after you have eaten the steak? The eyes also have an effect through portion sizes, bigger plates mean bigger portions; people tend to finish what they are served, but research shows that when people are given a smaller plate that is just as full but holds less food they are just as happy.

•      Nose hunger. Another old one, early in the 20th century a scientist called Ivan Pavlov showed how the smell (and sight) of food leads to an automatic watering of the mouth. Next time you walk past your favourite restaurant take a moment to examine how the feelings in your mouth change as you begin to smell the food as you pass by. The problem is that this happens whether you are hungry or not.

•      Mouth hunger. An obvious one, but it's not just the flavour that the mouth craves it's also the texture. Would fish and chips or chicken tikka masala be as good to eat if they had been blended into a milkshake consistency?

•      The stomach. It's reasonable that we should eat because we feel that empty rumbling stomach. The error that we make is to think that our stomach tells us when to eat; actually we tell it. If we eat at a certain time of day, when we see things associated with that time of day (driving home, sunset and so on) our body responds to these triggers by setting of the stomach muscles moving in anticipation of having some food to process. We can retrain the stomach to respond to different expectations if we want to.

•      Cellular hunger. Have you ever had a fixed craving for one particular food, something out of the ordinary and not associated with passing a restaurant or seeing an advert? The thought of it just comes at you out of the blue, and triggers all of the types of hunger we have just discussed. Unless it's because it's a food you have been expressly forbidden to eat for medical reasons and you are feeling rebellious, then you should probably eat that food. There may well be an element or food group in it that your body needs. For instance if you have been doing strenuous lifting around the house and your arms are feeling weak – then that fantasy about a steak is your muscles asking for protein so they can repair themselves.

•      Mind hunger. We all have opinions about what is a good diet and these are influenced by the various rules of eating that we take on from diet gurus. Can they all be right? Can a vegetarian-based diet and a high-protein meat diet both be right? Some writers have tried to link differences to body type or blood group. Being an informed eater is one thing, but examine all your eating rules; how did you get them? What do you think will happen if you go against them? What is the evidence for those beliefs other than the opinion of a food guru?

•      Heart hunger. We can associate certain emotions with hunger. They may remind us of past happy times and so when we feel sad or lonely we fall back on these foods to lift our mood. The problem is when we begin to associate any food with being distracted from those negative emotions.

Next time you’re hungry ask yourself which hunger is at work, it's usually more than one. Ask yourself where your hunger comes from and will it make you eat or will you step back and make a considered choice. Mindfulness can be a useful approach in doing this.

BBC UK