The Real Face of Overeating
Restaurants, fast-foods, snack kiosks, and vending machines are on every corner offering all kinds of food. There are unlimited choices for people who like to spend their spare time enjoying a meal at a local sandwich shop, or for busy people who eat on the run, or for sports and movie fans who like to watch favorite shows surrounded by bags of chips and cans of soda. Food plays an important role in human life. People eat not only to satisfy physical needs, but also for pleasure. Eating at the restaurant is a great relief for a person after a busy, stressful week. Also, food provides important nutrients for the human body. A balanced food diet makes a great contribution to human’s health, but overeating can lead to devastating consequences. Why do people overeat? There are psychological, physiological and social causes and effects of excessive food consumption. Overeating and its consequences have become a twenty first century disaster in the United States and across the globe.
One of the major causes of overeating is the psychological state of a person. Nowadays many factors influence human emotions. One of them is stress. Exposure to the constant stress of everyday life significantly disturbs people’s psychological health. It can cause light or deep depression, mood disorders, anxiety disorders as well as eating disorders. There are different ways of coping with stress, and often people turn to food as a relief from their problems. Harvard research suggests: “Stress, the hormones it unleashes, and the effects of high-fat, sugary “comfort foods” push people toward overeating. Researchers have linked weight gain to stress, and according to an American Psychological Association survey, about one fourth of Americans rate their stress level as 8 or more on a 10-point scale” ("Stress And Overeating: Stress Hormones Increase Appetites And A