Do you feel like gobbling up a cookie or a bowl of chips every time you feel idle? Do you crave for something to eat every time you have a free time in your hands? Then you probably have something that is called as boredom eating? What is boredom eating? And does it affect your physical and mental health if you have one? Below is a brief definition of what boredom eating is.
Boredom eating, according to psychologists, is known as one specific type of larger group known as emotional eating behaviors. It is a sad fact that boredom eating contributes much to the problem called obesity in people all over the world. Emotional eating, by the way, is when your body craves for food as a respond to the emotional triggers, be it a positive or negative trigger. Boredom eating happens when you are, well, bored. When you do not have anything else to do, your body will think much of food, making you to go to the kitchen and have something to eat.
This happens because people think that it alleviates boredom whenever they have something to eat at hand. And when they are done eating, they would become satisfied and that they have something else to do after eating. And usually boredom eaters wont be doing anything else or wont think of anything else to do until they are finished eating and do the same process again and again.
When this happens all the time, people who are considered as boredom eaters are likely to gain weight, for they are overeating. And when they do not exercise to compensate the calories they earned, they are much prone to illnesses such as hypertension or diabetes.