It is a reality that food is an important process for our health and therefore we must take care of it … but have you ever thought about the consequences of bad nutritional habits on our health? What is behind them?
Nutrition is a vital function that constitutes a fundamental pillar in the lives of people. The type of food that we have has a significant influence on our physical and emotional well-being, and is related to the appearance of many diseases such as obesity, diabetes or even cancer.
Changes in society, culture and the media have a great influence on our nutrition. At present, factors such as the intensification of working hours, the rise of precooked meals and the low cost of foods rich in saturated fats, facilitate the adoption of inadequate eating habits that have serious consequences on our health.
Relationship between Psychology and Nutrition
But not only the factors related to the social and working environment influence the eating habits, but also the relationship between the way of feeding and the psychological aspects is relevant. In many occasions, bad eating habits derive from the presence of psychological variables such as:
– Unrealistic goals, such as the desire to lose a lot of weight in a short time.
– Dissatisfaction with the body image, such as the lack of adjustment to the beauty canon established in the sociocultural environment.
– Stress, caused by work, emotional, social causes…
– Low mood, very frequent, which can be caused by a variety of causes: work, social relationships, problems of a couple, some traumatic event such as the death of a relative…
– Lack of motivation to lead a healthy life, with good eating habits, It can also be caused by multiple causes of various kinds.
These psychological variables can be both the origin and the cause of a poor diet, that is, these psychological variables can appear as a consequence of a diet that is not healthy or, in the opposite direction, these variables can be the cause that causes a non-healthy diet. healthy.
This type of process can promote the adoption of habits of overeating or food restriction, thus favoring the appearance of eating disorders, such as “binge eating disorder”, which leads to overeating, or anorexia, which leads to deficient diet.
Emotional Nutrition and Nutrition Psychology
There is an evident relationship between emotions and nutrition, as has been shown in the previous section. It is common, often promoted by the media, television series, advertising, social networks… and in general the sociocultural environment itself. For example, movies or series in which the characters consume fatty foods in times of emotional instability, such as the habit of consuming large amounts of chocolate ice cream when a character has had a bad day in fiction, are very common.
This relationship between emotion and nutrition is called “emotional feeding”, and is defined as those eating behaviors influenced by the emotions and moods of people, in which a diet is used or certain foods are consumed to alleviate psychological processes , for example, anxiety.
The emotional diet is included in the “Psychology of Nutrition”, which is the branch of psychology that is responsible for addressing the psychological problems that affect food. It is important to identify the relationship between our emotional state and food intake, since, in the bad times that we all spend and often generate great anxiety, it is common to resort to bad eating habits to try to compensate them.
Behind the eating habits of each person there are different variables of a psychological nature that influence the number of meals we make, the speed at which we eat, what foods we consume, etc.
Healthy habits
For all the comments, it is essential to know healthy habits that help us to take a varied and balanced diet and, thus optimize the emotional state and the quality of life itself. Some of these habits that favor maintaining adequate nutrition and obtaining greater physical and emotional well-being are:
– Make 5 daily meals.
– Eat 5 or more servings of fruits, vegetables and vegetables daily.
– Decrease the consumption of prepared, pre-cooked food, pastries and sweets.
– Perform physical exercise regularly and systematically, physical exercise provides multiple benefits to the body, both physically and psychologically, at any age.
– Perform leisure activities and pleasurable, to help us maintain a good mood.
There is a clear relationship between biological, psychological and nutritional aspects, and the consequences for our health of the adoption of unhealthy eating habits. Hence the need for a discipline, such as the psychology of nutrition, that is responsible for addressing these situations, even without a specific explicit pathology being necessary. The psychology of nutrition, therefore, plays an important role in achieving our physical and emotional well-being, as well as in helping us identify inappropriate eating behaviors and replace them with healthier ones. It can be said that this branch of psychology gives importance to take care of ourselves inside and out.
If you have questions or require more information, contact the specialists of the Psychologists in Mérida portal.
