The Connection Between Food and Mood

Food is a way for people to connect to each other and themselves. Food is an integral part of living. People need food to survive. However, food can also become a huge problem for some as it turns from something that nourishes the body, to something that destroys the soul.

Binge eating is a problem afflicting more and more people across the world. A reported 2-5% of the general population suffers from binge eating disorder (Safer, Telch & Chen, 2009, p. 6). BED involves eating large amounts of food within a short period of time consistently for a period of 6 months or more. Those that suffer from BED have an unhealthy and often hard to let go of connection to food. They use food as a coping mechanism instead of dealing with any anxiety or negative emotions they feel. While BED is manageable, the eating disorder has to be understood from a multitude of perspectives.

In a study related to food, mood, and obesity, the connection between food is made from a conscious and unconscious direction. "Distinctions are made between conscious and unconscious emotions and their relative importance in food-related behavior is discussed" (Koster & Mojet, 2015, p. 180). Some people binge for example, due to having nutrient deficiencies. These urges come from an unconscious source because the body is telling someone to eat more in order to fix the deficiency. It gets converted to hunger signals and the person feels the urge to eat a large amount of food. Many times women who've binged reported starving themselves or going on low-calorie diets for a prolonged period of time and then beginning binging after. This is because the body is attempting to correct the deficiency brought on by the deprivation.

Hormones in the body like leptin and ghrelin signal the brain to eat more or stop eating (Dovey, 2010, p. 138). When someone has a binge eating disorder or some other eating disorder, these kinds of hormones become unbalanced, leading to issues with appetite control and over or undereating. Other things may be at play as well in terms of conscious emotions fueling hunger. People sometimes binge eat in order to gain a positive feeling or calming effect that helps deal temporarily, with any emotional pain or anxiety the person feels. "Food is a potent natural reward and food intake is a complex process. Reward and gratification associated with food consumption leads to dopamine (DA) production, which in turn activates reward and pleasure centers in the brain." (Singh, 2014, p. 1).