A thank-you-for-your-service letter to binge eating
Between the ages of 17 (possibly earlier) through the time I was about 29, I often used to feel overwhelmingly sad. In truth, these sad feelings started well before I began binge eating and stuck around for a long time after. In retrospect, my sad feelings weren’t dangerous (I was lucky). I’m not even sure my sad feelings needed to change, though a decrease in frequency and intensity would have been welcome. No, my sad feelings could have benefited from one simple factor: acknowledgment. And such acknowledgment could have come from me or could have come from other people.
Unfortunately, there was a problem. I was rarely honest. I hid behind a joke and a smile. Naturally, how could sad feelings be acknowledged if I wasn’t letting anyone know? I doubt I had the language to describe what I was going through anyway.
Yet my sad feelings persisted. And they spent a lot of time…piling. up.
My emotional eating support system
When I was 18 and moved from small-town California to big-city Chicago for college, I lived above a convenience store. Notably, this convenience store didn’t take cash or credit; it took school “bucks” or pre-purchased dollars set aside for food. Such “bucks” could be spent anywhere on campus, including this store. It was a very tempting situation. And then my roommate dropped out.
At first, I was elated. It was the beginning of the second semester, and I didn’t receive a replacement. Within a few weeks, however, I found myself visiting the convenience store frequently. Twice a week, I’d buy a family-sized box of Lucky Charms and a jar of Jif. [SIDE NOTE: before writing this, I was convinced the brand name was “Jiffy.” Apparently, I’m not alone. I also found the slogan, “Choosy moms choose Jif.” Psychologically speaking, this might be relevant]. Twice a week, I’d eat the entire box of cereal and a whole jar of peanut butter, often in one sitting, and often in less than an hour…
This became common. Have a paper due? Eat a jar of peanut butter. Need to study for a test? Eat another jar. Have to read 100 pages by Friday? Yes, another jar bites the dust. After a night of binge eating, I’d feel sick. So sick, in fact, that I wouldn’t eat much for days after. Then another stressor, another jar, and I was back to binge-eating again.
What was wrong with me? I thought…
How to feel (and heal) with food
It was here that I started to consider that I might have a binge eating disorder. Truthfully, I’m not 100% sure my case was clinical. I’m not a doctor and I certainly never shared the details with one (until I was about 25, and only then by down playing the truth. My friends didn’t know either. No one knew). A the very least, it was disordered eating, and one thing was clear: I had an unhealthy relationship with certain foods. Even without a diagnosis, I was aware that the behavior posed health risks. I’d seen unhealthy eating in my family and I’ve since learned that other family members also struggled with food.
To the best of my knowledge, what causes eating disorders, or rather, what caused my eating disorder (again, see above: not a doctor…), was an expression of autonomy — “I do what I want…under the protection of nightfall and away from judging eyes” — mixed with a need to soothe, compensate for negative thinking, and a burning hatred for my body. Plus, the act was compulsory. I couldn’t stop myself. Instead, I started experimenting with extreme dieting to offset gaining weight.
To this day, my relationship with peanut butter remains a kryptonite. The night after writing a first draft of this (first published in 2022), for example, I found myself in the kitchen at 2 AM using a fork to scrape the last bits of a Teddie Natural Peanut Butter jar. I’ve upgraded the style without eliminating the behavior. Fortunately, I no longer eat the entire jar. With my wife fast asleep in the other room and my tiny dog at my side, I feel far less anxious and alone.
Breaking free from emotional eating
In his book, Irresistible, Professor of Marketing at New York University’s Stern School of Business, Adam Alter describes behavioral addiction as having three parts. There’s a trigger, a behavior, and a reward. When we talk about addiction, however, we often only talk about the behavior (like me eating a jar of peanut butter). But there’s always a bigger system at play. If I feel anxious and tired, for example, and it’s the middle of the night with no one else around, AND I see the fridge and I proceed to open it, well, it’s game over. The refrigerator is my trigger, and the odds are I’m going to wake up with a sick stomach. Once triggered, the addictive system runs on autopilot.
[SIDE NOTE: my wife and I recently moved bedrooms within our home. As a result, I no longer pass through the kitchen if I have to use the restroom in the middle of the night. Interestingly, I stopped binge eating peanut butter. Though accidental, I removed the trigger.]
Moreover, what reinforces the addiction is the reward. After the behavior of eating the peanut butter, I’ll be able to sleep. It makes me feel comforted, heavy, and secure. Peanut butter is a kin to a warm hug. Plus, I’ll get the pleasure of eating something delicious. But most of all, I’m rewarded with a distraction to difficult emotions: physical pain.
The compulsion remains
I wish I could say that’s the end of the story. Sadly, this addictive behavior has appeared elsewhere in my life. For one, I would regularly eat my roommate’s snack food later in college (if you’re reading this, old roommate, I apologize for stealing your food. None of this is intended to excuse my behavior. What I did was wrong). For two, I used to binge eat bags of leftover pastries when I lived in LA. In both instances, I’d binge eat to sickness once or twice a week, and then I’d fast and exercise until I felt like I was starving. Then around and around I’d go.
Compulsion is less about food and more about feelings.
Emotional eating support and acceptance
I’ve grown to (somewhat) accept my feelings, even when I eat to the point of sickness. At best, the behavior has decreased. I attribute my improvement to better understanding, years of therapy, and the support of a healthy marriage.
I’ll end with this: in The Body Keeps the Score, Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D. argues that while people socially value — especially in the west — the idea of the individual, people are much more socially oriented. As he puts it, “We are part of the tribe, even when we are by ourselves.” So whether watching a sporting event on TV, listening to music at home, or writing a blog post, we act for other people. As he puts it, “Most of our energy is devoted to connecting with others.”
I wonder…was I eating peanut butter to connect with you? Was I eating peanut butter to feel less alone? Maybe it would have been a shorter journey if I’d simply been with people more, shared my feelings, and taken the time to say hello.
In sum, I remain grateful for peanut butter. It was both the source of my troubles and a cure. Most of all, though, it was my teacher. And the thing about teachers is that we rarely have the same ones for the entirety of our lives. Perhaps now it’s my time to find a new lesson and a new story, maybe even time to find a new school.
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