Are You a Compulsive Eater? Test Yourself and See...
The questions below could each be temporarily true for anyone at one time or another. What matters is whether some of them have been true for you for a long time, and whether you feel unable to reliably control yourself with food.
• Do you think about food and eating a lot of the time?
• Do you often use food to make yourself feel better?
• Is food one of your most important sources of enjoyment or comfort?
• Do you often struggle over whether to eat, what to choose, or how much to have? Do you often feel like you lose the battle?
• Do you often feel regret about your choices after you’ve eaten?
• Do you believe that your eating is harmful to you, yet find that you still can’t change it?
• Do you often eat quickly and mindlessly?
• Do you often eat even though you aren’t hungry, or keeping eating after you feel full?
If you answered "yes" to two or more of the questions above, it would benefit you to be evaluated further. It has become common to accept these patterns with food as normal, but it is only in the past 20-30 years that the majority of the U.S. population has begun eating this way. It is not possible to relate to food in a fully enjoyable and comfortable way as long as these kinds of patterns remain in place, nor is it possible to achieve and maintain a healthy weight. The bad news is that the more questions you answered "yes," the more likely you are to need outside assistance in order to create the kind of relationship with food that you really want to have. The good news is that it can be done, and help is only one phone call or e-mail away.
Copyright © 2009, Elizabeth Babcock, LCSW. All rights reserved.