What Causes Overeating

“What causes overeating?”

Someone asked this question a few days ago, and it’s the $64,000 question.

How Could You Stop Eating This Once You Start?

This is what the entire weight loss industry including supplement, drugs and fitness are trying to figure out. Whoever finds out what the answer is will become a billionaire overnight.

With that said, I don’t believe there is a single answer to this question, I think it has multiple factors including:

Genetic factors

Family eating patterns when you were a child

Emotional Issues

Stress

Lifestyle (sedentary, active)

Socioeconomic status

Environment

Food Accessibility (are you surrounded by food all day)

Lack of true understanding of the negative effects of overeating

There are likely other factors that I have left out but in general these cover most of what will contribute to overeating.

Specific food items cannot be the cause as overweight and normal weight people alike are exposed to and eat many of the same foods, so there is something else that causes one person to continue eating and the other person to stop.

In other words, 10 people can all eat the same foods for an extended period of time but all 10 people will have a different propensity to gain weight…some just stop eating before they consume enough to gain weight while others will continue to eat…so the question is why?

I’m currently writing a weight loss program that is designed to account for this variability, so the system is flexible and allows room for personal preference…because frankly nobody but you knows what drives you into moments of overeating.

With that said, there are some common strategies everyone can use to help them eat less and lose weight, and depending on what is at the root of your overeating moments one strategy might work better for you than others.

At some point in the future I think it’s quite likely that there will be some sort of drug or genetic engineering intervention that will eventually solve the overeating problem, but until then we’ve got to do it the old fashioned way.

John

Posted by johnbarban in Calories, food

Tags: emotional eating, genetics, Overeating, stress |21 Comments

21 Responses to “What Causes Overeating”

jasetagle Says:
October 27th, 2010 at 11:14 am
Good post, John.

I had been “celebrating” my birthday since this past weekend, and prior to that, I was dieting diligently for the past 3 weeks (-2lbs. a week) and literally that was virtually necessary to balance things out. So I don’t know where people get the idea that you can “exercise” the weight away the next day. It makes my head spin because when you’re being “social” you can almost unconsciously consume calories by the thousand!
Jordan D. Says:
October 27th, 2010 at 1:40 pm
Some people are simply worse than others at resisting the temptation of really delicious foods. It’s like we’ve designed our foods to taste too good for our own good! It overwhelms not only our self-restraint, but also our goal of creating the physique that we want. I wanted to lose weight for years, but I put it off because it was hard for me to stop eating the way that I was eating. Gluttony has its advantages! lol. Eventually my goal of improving my body won out, but it took a while. So, needless to say, these foods have a pretty strong pull on a lot of us. (Not that the foods are to blame, but they can be very hard to resist.)

Now, I don’t know why some people are more prone to succumb to these temptations than others. For example, my brother is very thin and I’ve been struggling with being overweight for a decade. Our upbringings are the same and our genetics are similar. Just a personality difference? Brain chemistry? I dunno.

Lately, I’ve been trying to eat more simple, plain foods, not because of the “Paleo Diet” or any scaremongering about sugar or anything like that, but just because they’re less aggressively flavored, or unflavored, and that makes them much less tempting to overeat.

Of course, I’ll still eat some treats every now and then (yesterday at the store I was eying a package of no-bake cookies in the bakery, mm mmm, those looked good! lol.) I certainly don’t want to totally avoid them, only to feel deprived and “binge” on them later on. But less aggressively flavored foods are less taxing on my ability to resist temptation, so I’m going to give it a shot. Perhaps on a temporary basis, until my ability to control what and how much I eat is better.
johnbarban Says:
October 27th, 2010 at 2:23 pm
Jordan, that is an interesting strategy and I really like your term “aggressively flavored food”…if you don’t mind I’m going to quote you on that in a future blog post.

JB
Jordan D. Says:
October 27th, 2010 at 3:10 pm
Cool!
trixie28 Says:
October 27th, 2010 at 4:08 pm
After reading “The End of Overeating”, it answered a lot of these questions for me. The author goes on to say how certain food combos are highly addictive in nature. The most common addictive combo being fat,sugar & salt. He goes on to say many food chains put more of all these three ingredients into their menus to make people eat more. It kind of is sad. We’re tricked into eating more.
levsol Says:
October 27th, 2010 at 4:16 pm
“The most common addictive combo being fat,sugar & salt.”
-I would say it’s not so much an addictive combo as it is a tasty combo!

Personally, I always feel guilty if I don’t completely finish a meal from a restaurant. The caption under the picture seems appropriate.
Wood Says:
October 28th, 2010 at 3:23 am
I believe “overeating” is genetically coded in the humnans (and in the animals too) If our ancestors had food, they eat until it lasted, because they couldn’t conserve it. Our modern food has too much calorie and if you follow your (our) nature, you will be overweighted.
That’s why paleo eaters can have success, because it’t harder to overeat from meat and veggies, than from pasta, rice or cookies…
trixie28 Says:
October 28th, 2010 at 8:16 am
I agree with you Wood. I choose to eat Paleo because I find it easier to stay in a deficit and feel full. Not satisfied sitting down to a small amount of grains vs a big bowl of veggies.
mikenavin Says:
October 28th, 2010 at 1:33 pm
I’ve noticed in myself that I can overeat just out of boredom. During the week, I’m barely home, and my eating tends to be a bit more on the strict side. Then over the weekend, I tend to relax a bit more on the eating, and I’m home more, which means sometimes the walk through the kitchen can pull me into looking through the cupboards for high calorie food. But, come Monday morning, I’m back to my “regular eating” and whatever extra calories I consumed over the weekend are burned out pretty quickly.

I guess maybe the bigger question is why do people overeat, and then continue to overeat? Overeating on occasion I don’t think is where the problem is, but overeating on a daily basis is where I think the vast plurality of the population is at.

And I think the emotional part can’t be ignored. Sometimes I think obesity is simply a symptom of something else, rather than the main problem.
Jordan D. Says:
October 28th, 2010 at 5:03 pm
I agree, Wood, but it’s not just Paleo. That’s the underlying logic of most diets, whether it’s Paleo, low carb, low fat, vegan, raw food, etc. The dieter is reducing or eliminating entire categories of foods, and that’s what creates the calorie deficit. I imagine just about anybody could lose weight not eating any cooked foods! Now whether one would want to do it, that’s another question. Not me! lol.

And that’s where the issue of sustainability/ adherence comes into play. Yeah, one could lose weight on countless diets, but what does one need to do long-term to lose *and* maintain? That’s what I’m still trying to figure out for myself.
Wood Says:
October 29th, 2010 at 3:56 am
Jordan, You are right, the Paleo was an example, even I dont eat that way. For me intermittent fasting was the key i think. I can do 2 fast per week easily and I mostly skip breakfast. And that way I can lose or at least maintain my weight (btw I could go a little lighter) even if I eat what I want, because the only thing I can’t resist is temptation… lol
trixie28 Says:
October 29th, 2010 at 9:38 am
Well, for me Paleo works during the week. On the weekends I tend to have my treats. This way I don’t feel deprived.
Jordan D. Says:
October 29th, 2010 at 1:27 pm
Yeah, whatever it takes. I’m not going to fault anyone for doing anything reasonable to reduce the sense of temptation and make things easier on themselves. I’m 4-5 days into my experiment and it’s going well so far, I’ve already lost a couple of pounds. I’m definitely eating less. So whatever works!
Link Says:
October 29th, 2010 at 6:33 pm
All this post manages to do for me is make me hungry for a burger…XD
Tailwindnyc@yahoo.com Says:
October 29th, 2010 at 6:56 pm
@Mike, I do pretty much what you do (strict during the week, more relaxed on weekends), but unfortunately I don’t burn off the extra calories so easily, despite fasting and weights/cardio workouts. It pretty much sets me back, or at least keeps my weight stable. ::sigh:: I’m looking forward to when I get my bodyfat down low enough to simply maintain and enjoying a nice weekend, rather than having to lose.
Lillea Says:
October 31st, 2010 at 10:09 am
Another Paleo diet fan here, but no matter what foods I have eaten in my adult life, I have counted calories. I can overeat paleo foods given a chance, even vegetables believe it or not. lol. Counting helps to keep me on track, but Paleo foods can be very satieting so it makes eating less easier.

Great point about aggressive flavors Jordan. Although I ate whole foods most of my life, I used to like a lot of very chemically tasting stuff compared to what I eat now. It’s bizarre to think about what I used to tolerate flavor-wise!

How appropriate to be posting this on Hallowe’en, too, day of highly flavored junk food galore for many people! LOL
GymPixie Says:
October 31st, 2010 at 2:43 pm
Another Paleo follower!! I just found that after dieting down all these years for competitions or whatnot – probably the wrong way. I’m sure I have messed up my matabolism so the only way I found to get it kick-started again was to follow this Paleo Diet. Seems to be working for the most part. On my weekend off days though – it’s back to the same old eating frenzie – once I start I can’t stop. The only reason I look forward to Monday’s is to get back on the Paleo bandwagon and get some sanity to my eating. What a vicious cycle. Who would have thought that eating could be this difficult!!!!!
Jordan D. Says:
November 1st, 2010 at 1:07 pm
GymPixie, I feel the same way. Last week I did very well, and felt very much in control. I didn’t even overeat during Halloween, just one Reese’s PB Pumpkin and a couple of chocolate chip cookies. But then last night I visited my mom, and she made a batch of no bake cookies. Aah, my Kryptonite! lol. I had… umm, several!

But I had a good meal today and I feel like I’m back on track, so I’ll just let that one discretion slide and try to do better for as many days in a row as I can. Clearly, we’re all vulnerable to temptation, no matter what we do, no matter what strategy we choose. We’re still human, still surrounded by an almost infinite variety of delicious foods that are so hard to resist. We can do it, but it ain’t easy.
cozzy Says:
November 3rd, 2010 at 5:10 pm
John,

I think we all can recognise an ecto-meso and endo morphic physique- but if it’s not entirely environmental influences and behaviours, which all health magazines would have us believe; what are the genetic factors that preclude our stature? You point it out at the top of the list of ‘what causes overeating’. To defeat the enemy I need to know what I’m dealing with here! I was a total meathead mesomorph until I hit 24 and at that point I became a devout ectomorph. Is it in my genetics, and if so what can I do to confront it?

Thanks!
cozzy Says:
November 3rd, 2010 at 7:14 pm
^ :read: endomorph, not ectomorph.
WaistHipsandThighs Says:
November 7th, 2010 at 4:00 pm
Man John I actually ate one of those things at a place called of all things “Heart Stoppers” here in South Florida. I should say I tried to eat it be failed miserably. My friend however was able to finish it off with no problems.

The funny thing is that I knew I was going to try and eat it that day so I pretty much fasted until dinner. My friends had breakfast, and lunch before tackling the 3lb burger. Then they wonder way they can’t lose weight and say I am starving myself how great is that.

Great post!! Glad to see Venus Index is finally out something I have been waiting on for awhile.

-Thomas

21 Responses to “What Causes Overeating”

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