Craving vs impulse: What are you guilty of?
With obesity rates rising in the UAE, it is important for individuals to create a healthier relationship with food, says an expert
The obesity statistics of the UAE don’t paint a positive picture. According to the World Health Organisation, 66 per cent of the people in the UAE are overweight, according to figures revealed at the Gulf Obesity Summit and Regional Congress held in Abu Dhabi in April. A leading cause of being overweight are food cravings and impulses. Understanding a food craving or a food impulse is the first step to acknowledging the problem and then working to resolve it.
In fact, recent research throws interesting light on this issue. Ina Washington Post story, Julia Hormes, an assistant professor of psychology at State University of New York at Albany, who co-authored a study on cravings in undergraduate students, explained: “Cravings start with a trigger. This could be external, such as the scent of chocolate chip cookies. Or it could be internal, such as being angry or bored. Second, you elaborate on these thoughts by using mental imagery, and this is what turns it into a fullfledged craving.”
To banish the craving, you need to interrupt this process. One approach is to practise mindfulness, accept the thoughts and move on. Another is to try to suppress the thoughts altogether by distracting yourself.
In another study, researchers at the University of Salzburg in Austria exposed two groups of participants — those who experienced frequent and intense chocolate cravings in everyday life, and those who didn’t — to images of chocolate.
Each group was alternately told to either think freely about anything, or think about anything but chocolate.
The chocolate-loving participants were able to stop thinking about chocolate by focusing on future events, other people or even traffic lights. (Non-chocolate lovers didn’t show such an effect, probably because they weren’t particularly craving chocolate in the first place.)
Gulf News asked Juliot Vinolia, clinical dietician, Medeor 24/7, Dubai, to throw light on the world of cravings and impulses.
“A food craving is an intense desire to relish the taste of a specific food or food type that is hard to resist,” said Vinolia. “It is a temporary state of mind where soon after consuming it, it activates the happiness centre of the brain. For many, craving is satisfied by consuming 1-2 servings of the desired food,” said Vinolia.
“A food impulse, on the other hand, is the urgent need to overeat large portions of a particular food within a few minutes and later, experience guilt and shame. These sudden impulses mostly occur after a stress-induced activity, physical and mental.
“An impulse can also be the result of restricting sugary or fatty comfort foods over a period of time.”