{"id":21812,"date":"2023-10-03T08:00:24","date_gmt":"2023-10-03T12:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/?p=21812"},"modified":"2023-10-03T09:03:29","modified_gmt":"2023-10-03T13:03:29","slug":"the-connection-between-food-and-relationships","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2023\/10\/the-connection-between-food-and-relationships.html","title":{"rendered":"The Connection Between Food and  Relationships"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/258\/2023\/09\/ice-cream-2588541_1280-scaled.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-21866\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/258\/2023\/09\/ice-cream-2588541_1280-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"768\" height=\"511\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em><b>Since Eve ate the apple, much depends on dinner.\u2014Lord Byron<\/b><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Since the beginning of time, food was associated with relationship difficulty.<\/p>\n<p><b>Eve\u2019s decision to eat involved:<\/b><\/p>\n<p>God \u2013she hid from Him because of her sin<\/p>\n<p>Adam \u2013she offered Him to join her in her deception<\/p>\n<p>Satan\u2014she listened to his lie and planting of doubt<\/p>\n<p>These are all relationship issues\u2014hiding our true self and feelings, being deceived by others, and listening to lies and doubting God\u2019s truth.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Today, food is intertwined with relationships and used in unhealthy ways, especially in the church. It is seen as <span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>an acceptable way to cope with relationship conflicts<\/li>\n<li>better than engaging in other addictions<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Here are 4 unhealthy ways to use food in relationships:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><b>1) Food as a friend or lover<\/b>: People let you down. There is divorce, betrayal of relationships, hurt, abuse&#8230; ahh, \u00a0but food is always tasty and available. You turn to food. It tastes good, brings momentary pleasure and can be counted on to be available whenever you need it. <span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>2) Food as medication<\/b>: When there is relationship conflict, stress, problems and difficulty, food can be used to calm down, soothe, and comfort. Upset or stressed? Eat! Some children learn this early and use food to feel better and calm down.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>3) Food as a numbing agent<\/b>: Food is a way to deal with interpersonal anger, upset, abuse, alcoholism and other addictions. When those are experienced \u00a0in a relationship, food can be your numbing agent to not feel the pain.<\/p>\n<p><b>4) Food as distraction<\/b>: Don\u2019t want to face a bad marriage. Et instead of addressing your part of the problem. Don\u2019t want to face that problem relative, \u00a0eat to avoid and escape the real issues. Don\u2019t want to face the boss who overworks you, eating is a way to distract. When my brother was killed, food was a way to avoid dealing with the pain of the loss.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> It served as a temporary numbing agent.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>When food is used in any of these four ways, your relationships will suffer because you are not dealing directly with the relationship issue. <span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>To give up the improper uses of food, consider the following:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><b>Identify:<\/b> What is driving your hunger? Are you eating because you are hungry or for some emotional\/relational reason? You can\u2019t control others but you can control what goes in your mouth.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ol start=\"2\">\n<li><b>Accept <\/b>that your eating is out of control or tied to relationship upsets. Identify the eating pattern so you can make changes.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ol start=\"4\">\n<li><b>Take responsibility<\/b> for change and moving out of the victim position. Don\u2019t blame others.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> And don&#8217;t use food as an escape or for numbing.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ol start=\"5\">\n<li><b>Forgive<\/b> your own failures and those of others.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 Sometimes unforgiveness is at the root of unhealthy eating. Consider the relationship issue and forgive where needed.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><strong>4 ways to stop food from being used for relationship problems<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Identify what you are feeling: conflict, anger, jealousy, fear, rejection, What do you do when you become emotionally upset in a relationship? Negative emotions can be triggers to eat.<\/li>\n<li>Learn to express that feeling directly and address it in the relationship, Don\u2019t hide it or eat it away. There is no healing in secrecy. Grieve losses, and assert your needs.<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0Deal with conflict in relationships. For help, I wrote a book on conflict resolution, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/We-Need-Talk-Successfully-Navigate\/dp\/0801016762\/ref=asc_df_0801016762\/?tag=hyprod-20&amp;linkCode=df0&amp;hvadid=241995309321&amp;hvpos=&amp;hvnetw=g&amp;hvrand=3227253218533482742&amp;hvpone=&amp;hvptwo=&amp;hvqmt=&amp;hvdev=c&amp;hvdvcmdl=&amp;hvlocint=&amp;hvlocphy=9026561&amp;hvtargid=pla-570587558873&amp;psc=1\">We Need to Tal<\/a>k. Work on your conflict management skills. Don&#8217;t turn to food to calm yourself or manage your anger.<\/li>\n<li>Ask, is there a need behind the feeling&#8211;the need to be loved, accepted, approved of or respected?<\/li>\n<li>Substitute a new behavior. What can you do instead of eat? Walk, exercise, play music, take a deep breath, etc.<\/li>\n<li>Practice a substitute behavior for eating over and over until it becomes second nature.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Since Eve ate the apple, much depends on dinner.\u2014Lord Byron Since the beginning of time, food was associated with relationship difficulty. Eve\u2019s decision to eat involved: God \u2013she hid from Him because of her sin Adam \u2013she offered Him to join her in her deception Satan\u2014she listened to his lie and planting of doubt These&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":419,"featured_media":21866,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[918],"tags":[7394,7397,1035,433,7400,7313,53,1139],"class_list":["post-21812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-relationship-to-food","tag-coping-with-food","tag-disordered-eating","tag-emotional-eating","tag-food","tag-food-and-relationships","tag-relationship-issues","tag-relationships","tag-stress-eating"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Connection Between Food and Relationships<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Food can be a coping object for relationship difficulties. It is often used in unhealthy ways to numb feelings or cover pain.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Connection Between Food and Relationships\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Food can be a coping object for relationship difficulties. It is often used in unhealthy ways to numb feelings or cover pain.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2023\/10\/the-connection-between-food-and-relationships.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Doing Life Together\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/drlindamintle\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-10-03T12:00:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-10-03T13:03:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/258\/2023\/09\/ice-cream-2588541_1280-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"768\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"511\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Linda Mintle\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@drlindamintle\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Connection Between Food and Relationships","description":"Food can be a coping object for relationship difficulties. 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