Why do we overeat?

By Kim Sun-ae

We tend to overeat when we feel dissatisfaction, according to my observations. When we are upset, discontent or unstable, we want to find comfort from food. We want to believe that eating will bring satisfaction. Although we know that excessive eating will not do that, it is hard to be free from our habit if we have developed that habit for years or even decades.

Only when we realize that overeating does not bring us real and continued contentment, we can drop our unhealthy habit and start again. Eating to excess can only give us temporary comfort in trying to forget and escape our problems. But after eating too much, more dissatisfaction follows inevitably. We regret our action as our body becomes heavier and uncomfortable.

Heavy drinking also has the same pattern. Many people drink to run away from reality ― it could be a problem in your life or the awkwardness one feels at a party. We want to solve our problem. We want to feel connected with the people around us. But we do not know how. So we choose eating or drinking too much.

Moreover, even while eating, we are not really eating. Many of us are thinking or doing other things such as watching TV during a meal. We do not truly taste the tomato before us or appreciate the person who cooked for us. Instead of concentrating on eating, we are often lost in thought. When have we really eaten?

During my trip to Gyeongju a few years ago, I was walking for several hours only drinking water. Then I met an old woman selling apples in front of a pine forest. I bought four yellow-green apples from her. When I took a bite off the apple, peel and all, it was crisp and sweet. I was thankful for all the things that enabled the apple trees to grow and the woman who sold the apples.

These days, on the garden in front of my workplace, barley is growing well. I have watched it since I participated in planting it last autumn. This February, much of the barley field was yellow, so I asked the gardener whether the barley was alive. He answered that the green ones were alive and the yellow ones were frozen because it was too cold. The frozen ones could be alive or dead. When I said, "I hope they are alive,”he said that he would sow barley seeds again. He said, "Although it is a little late, barley seeds can be planted around this time too.”

Fortunately, the garden is full of barley now. Some people at my workplace set up a scarecrow in a straw hat in the middle of the field. Passers-by smile at a red rose that the scarecrow is holding in its hand. The sound of the wind brushing past the field and the golden barley rippled by the wind are beautiful.

Our food is produced when all the conditions are met, including the wind and the rain. And food enables us to live every day. Food is not just food. Everything is in it ― the soil, farmers’ hard labor, the people who delivered farm produce. Therefore, how we eat food shows how we treat everything.

What and how we eat forms our body and our body changing can lead to many changes in various aspects in our lives. So a change in our attitude to eating may change our lives.

I am grateful for the food in front of me today.

The writer is a translator who lives in Seoul. Her blog address is https://blog.naver.com/dancinglf.