Breaking free from emotional eating is to start by under­standing that the brain has two built in directives: pleasure seeking and survival. Which one influences our eating behavior? Both!

The Pleasure-Seeking Program

First, how many holidays have you celebrated since you were a child? Add to that the birthdays and other special occasions, such as weddings and anniversaries, and you may total between eight and fifteen per year. All of these occasions brought with them friends, relatives, at­tention, love, warmth, and what else? You got it--wall to wall food!

What happened when you ate your peas or cleaned your room? You were rewarded with what? Dessert! Or Daddy would pack up the family on Sunday and take you where? Dairy Queen?

Little wonder your brain often says, "Eat, you'll feel better; be nice to yourself; it tastes good; you deserve it."

The Survival Program

When you were a baby and you cried-for most any reason-what was the answer? The bottle, right? Anytime you were frustrated or upset, the bottle was there. The result was that you learned an early association with food and frustration. And when you ate your baby food-especially peas and carrots, you were rewarded with kudos and related food with pleasurable feelings.

Later when you were a toddler, maybe you made an over­ture toward another little boy or girl and were rejected, or you lost or broke a toy, or the teacher yelled at you because you didn't have your homework, or you didn't have a date for the first dance, or some other calamity happened, and you ran home crying, "Mommy, Mommy, the world's coming to an end." And what did Mommy say? "Come have some milk and cookies. You'll feel better in a little while." Sure enough, a little while later you felt better. All this time you have thought it was the cookies and milk, when it was really just the passing of time. No wonder your brain often says, "Eat, you've had a rough day," or "Eat, you got a lot done today," or "Given all the bull you've put up with today, you deserve something," or "Eat. If you don't, it'll get thrown away and you'll be wasting money," or "Eat. Be nice to yourself and treat yourself to some­thing good!"

The Result

For many years this was OK. Then at some point you discovered that you had a weight problem. At what age? Seven, fifteen, thirty-five? The age is irrelevant. The first five or six years of your life are the most formative. By the time you realized you had a weight problem, you had already been perfectly condi­tioned to eat in response to pleasure and/or survival. Little wonder then when you feel frustrated, upset, down, rejected, happy, glad, bored, excited... your brain suggests having something to eat. It's simply the program.

It would seem obvious that all we need do to eliminate emotional eating--stop overeating is to be aware of our emotions and correct the program.

However, because most of us have been trained to deny our feelings, the brain doesn't say, "Eat, you're happy." It says, "Eat because it looks good." Even when we're bored, the brain doesn't say, "eat because you're bored;" it says, "eat because it would taste good," or "eat because there's nothing else to do."

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