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Emotional Eating (Expert Forum)
Food Hoarding
Answered by
Roger Gould, M.D. - Mental Health, Wellness
Questions in the Emotional Eating forum are answered by Dr. Roger Gould. Topics covered include anger and eating, anxiety and eating, binge eating, depression and eating, eating to "fit in", emotional eating, fill the void eating, guilt and eating, loneliness and eating, social eating, and stress and eating.
Food Hoarding
by niferphd, May 08, 2008 10:41AM
Does anyone else hoard food? It's odd- I often feel compelled to buy things (always sweets) or bring them with me to work, but I rarely eat them. Just thinking about the fact that I have the option to eat them during the day gives me a feeling of relief. I don't binge; I don't purge; I do watch what I eat, but I eat about 1700-1800 calories per day. I wasn't raised in an environment where we didn't have food, but my mother was anorexic and did put restrictions on what I was allowed to eat. In middle school I often binged on candy, but that stopped in high school. This mysterious hoarding habit is getting expensive, and I really don't understand why I'm doing it. Does anyone else do it? Or have thoughts about it? I'd welcome anything, because I am pretty baffled.
Doctor's Answer
by Roger Gould, M.D., May 08, 2008 04:25PM
, May 08, 2008 04:25PM
To: niferphd
One possible dynamic is that you are expressing your autonomy in your own way, which is to violate your mother's restrictions by buying the forbidden food, but saving yourself from the sabotaging part, which is to eat and get fat. The way to stop that is to come to a full understanding that you are rebelling against phantom authority...your mother no longer is in control of your intake...but you still let her be, You may have to do some good psychological separation work in order to free yourself from this compulsion based on a frozen in time relationship with your mother.
Member Comments (2)
by niferphd, May 09, 2008 03:48PM
To: Roger Gould, M.D.
Dr. Gould, thank you so much for your observation. It definitely set off a few bells in my head. I appreciate you taking the time to consider my question, and I think you do a wonderful thing by answering questions in this forum. Again, thank you.
