You can talk to me all day about comforting myself with food, but, when I am not hungry, I don't eat. In fact, eating when I am not hungry is much harder than denying myself food when I am hungry.

Fattening stuff tends to taste better than stuff that is not fattening and it's usually handier, too.

Based on my experience, spend a lot more of that research money figuring safe ways around those two things.

You are someone who does not fit this definition. I believe most people who are obese have 2 problems..

A. They cannot stop eating, when they begin to fill up (that is they continue to eat cause it feels good)
B. They eat when they are not hungry, because they want the comfort that it brings.

That is the point of my post, and this comfort sensation is in my opinion is the point of this article.

to lose some weight. I was younger and lighter so having 600 calories a day did the trick.

What was amazing was that I realize that I did not need to eat more. We were busy most of the day, went early to bad and then I realized how sitting in front of the television at home munching on something was just a bad habit.

This is what I am trying to do now. After dinner, go brush my teeth and put my mouth guard and then I don't eat the rest of the evening and I do lose weight. Unfortunately, I don't do this often enough.

Less food, more water..lots more water. I wish that change were easy. If it were easy, then this topic would have no validity. But most people gain their weight back after their diets are successful. Why? because they think that they can lose the weight and not gain it back without change.

I learned to love frosting and cake before I was 5 years old. I attended family gatherings and parties of friends and they served frosting and cake, and it gave me comfort then and as recent as a few years ago, they gave me comfort then. I realized that I could live without that kind of comfort, so I stopped. You see, I like them a lot, and one piece of cake is not enough. It never has been, and if it is really good, it never will be.. So why start?

It is a decision we all have to make, if we have this problem. So, I almost never have chocolate for the same reason. I know I am not alone. Lots of people love chocolate and don't eat it for the same reason. I am close to normal weight, maybe 5/7 over. That is ok for me but when /if I get 20, I know I get in danger. Is that comfort really worth the risk?..I know this sounds like stupid talk, but right now about 110 million of us in this country are obese. We as a nation, must be eating the wrong stuff. I believe that this article discusses a very important part of the problem. And shit, who wants to give up something that gives them comfort with very little effort, and it is also very cheap. I remember feeling really great for a while on a nice bag of cookies that cost under 5 dollars. and yes, I ate the whole bag. (no, I don't do that anymore..ever)

and the mental factor is a very small factor. The truth is if someone is fat and rich, they probably have a mental problem with food. If someone is fat and poor, it's usually because they are poor.

The simple truth is I have seen many people who are poor or who are very, very busy that are poor. Why? Because processed food is cheaper and easier to prepare, plus it has the advantage of filling an empty stomach. Right now I have $25 worth of fresh fruit and vegetables plus bread and milk that have to be tossed because something happened and I couldn't use them before they went bad. Now, $25 may not seem like much to many of you, but for me it's a lot of money to waste. That $25 could have been used on processed food which would still be good, and would have filled my stomach.

I have seen fat people in all walks of life, many of those are people who are constantly moving. They eat poorly not because they are trying to soothe themselves, but to just fill their stomachs so they can keep going. Lack of sleep and stress also play an important factor in obesity. These are all too common in the working poor.

As the income inequality has gotten larger, so have people. It doesn't matter that we are a society that bases our worth on the way we look, people are still getting bigger. Yes, there is such a thing as comfort food, but if you really look at it, comfort food usually is something that will fill our stomachs. I don't think there are very many people out there who think fresh fruit and vegetables are comfort food. But, now tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich or macaroni and cheese, that is comfort food, and it is cheap.

I think I have read just about every article about obesity that has been published in the last fifty or so years, and it always comes back to one thing, poverty. If people had the time and money to eat right and exercise, the mental factor may hold water. The plain truth is that exercising and eating right only gets you so far, if you don't cure the lack of sleep and stress factors, you aren't curing anything, mental or otherwise.

Z

I think not.

Food has the capability to screw with your mind. In both good and bad ways. People do eat for comfort. I'm guilty of that at times. I get "carb cravings", especially if I am in the depression phase (one of my medical diagnosis is bipolar disorder) and it can be so strong that you just got to fulfil it.

Then again, exercise is a "drug" too. "Runner's High" exists. Sometimes we forget to take our medicine, and with exercise we're guilty as charged at times.

when in fact its mostly within ourselves. Yes, there's information and equipment, but the biggest issue is lack of self-discipline. That includes eating for comfort or a mood boost.

Some people who become drowsy at work eat a snack in the middle of the afternoon or drink lots of sugar laden coffee to stay awake.