Most books about emotional eating tend to focus on how to strengthen
self-restraint or how to identify what triggers it. The former can make
the problem worse, while the latter may be different each time it
occurs. Both approaches fail to help emotional eaters understand why
they feel compelled to do something that they don't want to do in the
first place. This understanding is the key to changing this behavior.
Howard Farkas, who has more than two decades of professional and
teaching experience as a clinical psychologist specializing in emotional
eating, explains the underlying motive that drives the behavior:
emotional eating is not a passive failure of self-control, but an active
impulse to reject the control of dieting. This defiant need "to be bad"
usually leaves the person feeling guilty and anxious about their eating,
and recommitting to their diet until the cycle repeats, and the
compulsive eating recurs.
8 Keys to End Emotional Eating provides a detailed plan for breaking
this pattern. By explaining the root cause that drives the desire to
binge, Farkas offers practical skills to help you learn to change your
mindset about dieting and end the impulse to binge. His road map for the
future will help readers maintain healthy eating habits for years to
come.