Most of the people have overweight conditions because of dietary irregularities. The excessive consumption of food manifests itself in excessive deposits of adipose tissue in the body leading to overweight and obesity. Most of these eating disorders can be related with emotional situations. This means that there are many emotional situations faced by people which trigger them to eat excessively. These situations are called emotional triggers. The excessive weight put on due to these situations is called emotional weight.

The modern day life has become excessively stressful for everyone. There are numerous situations that bring about heavy emotional reactions from the individuals. It is seen especially in the cases of ladies and some men also, that these emotional triggers cause excessive eating. Many middle aged ladies and even some men are known to put on excessive weights because of these emotional triggers activated by emotional situations.

Eating is used as a way to cope with emotional situations. Excessive eating is a way of comforting the system. This comfort level falsely generated because of food produces a temporary situation of lessening the stress levels. But it further enhances the situations of discomfort and stress because of overweight and obesity faced by the body. Thus a person gets into a vicious cycle where he uses food as a mode of comfort and excessive weight resultant of this, produces further stress.

The social significance of excessive weight gain is known to all. The comic characters generally harp upon the obesity factor to generate comedy and laughter. Similarly films and other media also project similar imagery for comic relief. This further enhances the plight of overweight and obese people. All the above mentioned information is not new to most people. However the good news is that these emotional triggers can be easily identified. And also that once identified they can be effectively controlled if one is inclined to do so. Here some emotional triggers are described in detail.

Social triggers: Most of the social situations all around the globe revolve around eating. People meet each other in social situations and food serves as the centre of the theme. There are certain Eastern countries where refusing offers to eat are considered impolite and amount to rudeness. Most of the people easily fall into the trap of courtesy and end up eating more than they usually do. There are many circumstances when people with low self esteem use food as a way of comforting them while meeting others in social situations. Also most of the social events also encourage excessive consumption of alcohol, which is full of empty calories with no nutritive value whatsoever.

Situational triggers: There are many situations where food is consumed only because there is an opportunity to do so. Like a person passes a restaurant or bakery or any other such eatery and indulges in impulsive purchase and consumption of food items. It is also seen that such behaviour is encouraged by the sight of foods that are rich in processed fats and sugars. It is normally not seen with very healthy types of foods. These situational triggers very adversely affect the state of affairs of overweight and obesity.

Physiological triggers: These are situations where excessive eating is triggered because of certain physiological changes and symptoms in the body. Many people claim that they can reduce the intensity of migraines by eating something just in time. Some other types of headaches, aches and pains can also be cured this way. Also people indulging in crash diets develop false signals in the body that trigger uncontrollable hunger. This leads to excessive consumption of food, which becomes very difficult for the body to handle.

Emotional triggers: These are seen most frequently used by women. These triggers are a reaction to tension, stress, emotional and relationship related problems. These are situations where the brain uses food as a comforter for anxiety, depression, anger, fatigue and loneliness. Many people are seen indulging in eating just to kill the boredom.

Thought triggers: A lot of people indulge in excessive eating as a result of low self worth. They tend to give excuses for not being able to stop. The behaviour extends to the levels that they fully convince themselves that it is the only way for them to beat the lack of self discipline and low will power. The brain starts to see eating as a natural reaction to feelings of low self esteem.

Maintaining a diary to exactly assess the occurrence of these triggers helps a lot in controlling them. Distracting the mind with other things of more productive nature helps the mind to keep the thoughts of food consumption away.

Yoga for Weight Loss

Yoga can help tremendously in enhancing the emotional state by learning to control the thought process. Yoga asanas for weight loss and pranayama practices help the body in burning excessive fat deposits. Meditation further helps in controlling the thought process and brings about complete coordination in mind and body. Also yoga nidra helps a person to create a new self image and regular practice helps manifest the new self image into reality.