Is Overeating Harming You Emotionally?

By Julie Morris – 

Everybody knows that overeating harms us physically, but it harms us emotionally as well. Look at this list to see emotional harm that overeating often does. Check any items that pertain to you.

1. Overeating encourages procrastination. We turn to food instead of facing unwanted tasks.
2. We eat to numb our stress. This keeps our problems from getting solved and adds additional ones.
3. Being overweight makes us feel self-conscious and insecure. Often we overeat in order to feel better and vicious cycles take over.
4. We often have unrealistic, happily-ever-after thoughts about dieting. This type of magical thinking will keep us on the diet merry-go-round permanently.
5. Overeating causes irritability. Some of us get irritable when we eat a lot of sugar while others find that they are more irritable when dieting because they miss their “best friend,” food.
6. Many of us are jealous of those who don’t have a problem with their weight. Jealousy leads to harmed relationships, self-pity and a lifetime of misery.
7. When we fall off our diet, we fall into shame. Shame causes us to feel worthless. It encourages us to treat ourselves badly and do destructive things to our bodies, such as eating in an unhealthy way and not exercising.
8. We miss out on many of the joys in life. We may be too busy focusing on eating or worrying about how much we weigh to enjoy the blessings we have.
9. We get into the habit of making excuses. This leads to a very unproductive lifestyle because we stay stuck in the same destructive patterns.
10. Some of us give up on ourselves. We quit trying to grow or change because we believe the lie that we are hopeless.

Don’t get depressed if you have a lot of checks! Instead look at these encouraging words from the Bible to remind yourself of the hope you have in Christ.

 “You will have plenty to eat, until you are full, and you will praise the name of the Lord your God, who has worked wonders for you; never again will my people be shamed” (Joel 2:26 NIV). God probably didn’t have weight-loss in mind when he wrote this, but it is very applicable. When we draw closer to God and begin to cooperate with Him in our eating and other areas, the promises in Joel 2:26 are ours. We don’t have to be at goal weight or eat perfectly to receive them; we just need to be headed in the right direction to experience these awesome promises:

• We will have plenty to eat until we are full! (We will be satisfied when we eat the amount of food that our bodies need.)
• We will praise the name of the Lord who has worked wonders for us! (We’ll know God has done a wonderful thing in us by helping us to lose weight and keep it off.)
• Never again will we be shamed! (We won’t be ashamed because we will be making progress toward becoming the people we want to be.) 

Please leave a comment below and let us know about the emotional harm that overeating is causing in your life. If you can think of other things that aren’t on the list, tell us about them too!