Why eating the feeling seems sensible

I don't want to start by telling you that food isn't the answer. You know that, and you've told yourself so on every visit for years. It hasn't helped, because the habit isn't stupid. There are real reasons for it, and they deserve stating before anything is said against them.

Food is there. It's the one comfort in the house that's always in stock, needs no one else, and costs nothing at the moment of use. A friend might be busy. A walk needs a coat. The fridge is eight steps away.

It works, briefly. The first mouthful of something salty or sweet when you're wound up is a real pleasure, and for the minute or two of eating, the email is somewhere else. You aren't imagining that. Chapter 4 will look at how long it lasts.

It's private. Nobody has to know you were struggling. You didn't ring anyone in tears. You ate some crackers.

It's a break that doesn't look like one. Standing at the fridge is allowed in a way that sitting on the sofa at ten to four doing nothing isn't. The visit gives you permission to stop for four minutes.

It was how comfort came when you were small. Many people were given something nice to eat when they'd fallen over or been upset. It was kindly meant, and it taught a link that's still there.

And it feels like doing something. When a feeling arrives and there's nothing obvious to do about it, going to the kitchen is at least an action.

I think the visit is trying to meet four needs, and this list is mine. You want relief from the feeling. You want a pause. You want comfort. And you want something to do with your hands and your attention while the feeling is there.

All four are reasonable. My argument is that the visit serves them badly. The relief lasts as long as the chewing. The pause is real, but it comes with a snack you didn't want, and you could have had the pause alone. The comfort is a stand-in for the real thing, which is a person, or rest, or an end to the problem. And the something-to-do is over in four minutes, after which the feeling is still there with fullness and the after on top. The visit answers the wrong question. The rest of this book is about finding the right one.