Why do we comfort ourselves with food

What is a “comfort” meal? It is a food that is associated with a feeling of comfort and temporary relief. This includes: chocolate, cookies, ice cream, chips and salty snacks, pizza, burgers, etc. These foods are often high in calories, sugar, and fats, but they are the ones we have fond memories of: childhood, holidays, caring, and home.

Scientists have hypothesized that we eat “comfort” food because we expect emotional or psychological benefits from it. To test this, they surveyed 214 people, asking them questions about their preferences, the frequency of consumption of their favorite foods, and the emotions associated with it.

It turned out that:

• The most popular product: chocolate. Chips and snacks are in second place, followed by sweet pastries.
• On average, participants ate their comfort food twice in the last two weeks, but many ate much more often.
• Almost all participants believed that comfort food was enjoyable, improved mood, and rewarded hard work.

However, these findings did not always match the actual behavior. That is, a person may think that he eats for pleasure, but in fact he does it much more often when he is bored or needs to concentrate.

Experts have found that the strongest trigger is boredom. It is the main factor related to the frequency of comfort food consumption. Then there are attempts to increase mental productivity (for example, before exams or deadlines). Interestingly, the desire for reward or positive emotions has almost no effect on the frequency of use — although we often consider this to be the reason.

In other words, we eat not because it is delicious or deserved, but to get rid of the inner feeling of emptiness or fatigue.

The findings provide an important clue: if you want to reduce the amount of food binge eating, start by fighting boredom, not the refrigerator. The researchers emphasize that understanding motivation is the key to changing behavior.

In addition, experts recommend:

• Learn such habits in real time, not from memory.;
• working with expectations to change attitudes towards food;
• replace rituals — for example, boredom can be interrupted by a walk, not a bar of chocolate.

Comfort food is not a weakness, but a reaction to an inner state. And the better we understand our triggers, the easier it is to learn how to take care of ourselves without overeating. Sometimes the surest way to comfort yourself is not pizza, but 10 minutes of silence, a book, or a call to a friend.