Top 3 reasons why we eat...

1. Convenience (easy access to prepared food and snacks) was a top link to being overweight in the U.S. Access to food has a profound influence on our eating. For example, when a dish of candy is on someone’s desk, he or she eats more than when a lid hides the candy or when it is on a nearby surface that requires getting up to get the candy. You can make food less readily available by keeping serving bowls of food off the table, storing sweets in cabinets rather than out on counters or tables and limiting the amount of high-calorie processed snack foods you bring home.
2. There is a major link to people being overweight and overeating. This is also known as Emotional eating, eating when sad, bored, restless or anxious. Some research suggests eating in response to negative emotions can be a comfort, a way of “swallowing” feelings instead of expressing them or a distraction from worries seemingly too great to handle. Depending on the type and degree of difficulty people have with this, they might read about or take classes in problem-solving or stress-avoidance, work with a registered dietitian trained to include coping skills or seek referral to a mental health professional.
   
3. Rigid restraint involves strict eating rules and a downside that it may promote binge eating once you break a rule. It was linked with greater short-term weight loss, but after two years was unrelated to weight. However, flexible restraint, a habit of moderate self-regulation and compensation for occasional high-calorie choices, was one of the strongest predictors of weight loss at two years.