What is a Fear of Food?
A fear of food can take many forms but here is a good example. I used to work in an office and I knew there was a box of individually wrapped biscuits on top of a cupboard in the kitchen. One afternoon I got hungry and remembered the box of biscuits. In the kitchen I bumped into one of the ladies from the office. As we were chatting I retrieved the box and removed a biscuit. My colleague’s faced changed to one of intense fear and she said “I did not know they were up there. That’s dangerous!”
She was frightened of a few packets of biscuits. She had a fear of food. Why was she so frightened? It was no secret. My colleague was on a diet. She had a fear of food or more correctly she was frightened of her lack of ability to resist the temptation of biscuits.
Diets Give You a Fear of Food
Suzie Orbach in her book “Fat is a Feminist Issue” stated that “Diets make ordinary women frightened of food”.
It is basic human nature to desire something we are told we cannot have. Diets tell you that you cannot eat or restrict your consumption of certain foods. Those restricted foods therefore become a temptation, a threat to ones attempts to achieve the desirable state of “thinness”. It is an easy step to demonise these foods and develop a fear of food. One diet club actually labelled certain foods as “sins” (they later changed the spelling to “syns” but with words we tend to react to how they sound not how they are spelt). We also have the marketing slogan “naughty but nice” – who thought of that? (it was actually the novelist Salman Rushdie in an advertising campaign for fresh cream – remember that for the pub quiz!)
Hypnotherapy Can Address a Fear of Food
Hypnotherapy helps you to recognise that what you eat is a question of choice. This removes a fear of food. Whatever you choose to eat has an impact upon your body. If you are in contact with your natural weight control mechanism, your choices of what to eat and drink are more likely to be in harmony with what your body requires for health.
Through hypnotherapy you can stop a fear of food and start enjoying it. There is nothing in food to be afraid of; "fattening foods" is just a label. Fear has no place in controlling weight fear of food like a fear of being thin is more likely to make you put on weight thatn lose it!
Take back control or your emotions and eating. Book an appointment today with hypnotherapist Stephen Rigby. Ring 01483 566115 now or book online. You can book an appointment at either his Guildford or Woking, Surrey practice. Remember to ask about free introductory sessions.