Typically, a quest to get healthier requires some sort of change in eating habits. So as you venture down the path to healthier eating, it might be important to understand why you eat. While on the surface this seems obvious, most of us attach some form of emotional baggage to our actions.

As we begin to explore Mindful Eating, let’s review Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs.” Abraham Maslow is known for establishing the theory of a hierarchy of needs, writing that human beings are motivated by unsatisfied needs, and that certain lower needs need to be satisfied before higher needs can be satisfied. The hierarchy starts with the most basic (life sustaining) and progresses to more complex (self actualization) needs:

• Physiological Needs - Physiological needs are the very basic needs to sustain life, such as air, water, food, sleep, sex, etc. The needs are biological. These needs can be very strong because if deprived over time, the person will die.

• Safety Needs - Needs such as living in a safe area away from threats.

• Social Needs – The need to affiliate with others, be accepted, be loved. Humans have a desire to belong to groups: clubs, work groups, religious groups, family, gangs, etc.

• Esteem Needs – The need to achieve, to be competent, and to gain approval and recognition.

• Self-Actualization - The need for self-actualization is the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming.

Some needs take precedence over others. For example, if you are hungry and thirsty, your body will tend to try to take care of the thirst first. The body can survive without food for weeks, but can only do without water for a couple of days. Thirst is a “stronger” need than hunger because the need to survive creates its own hierarchy. Even if you are hungry or thirsty, but someone has attacked you and you can’t breathe, which is more important? Resolving imminent danger supersedes physiological needs. The hierarchy can shift somewhat depending on urgency.

So, with this background let’s revisit eating. At the most basic level, eating meets a physiological requirement to survive. The body needs nourishment to grow and sustain life. However, this basic need is met relatively easily in modern society, and usually doesn’t require a double hot fudge sundae to sustain existence.

So for purposes of further discussion, we shall assume that basic physiological needs have been met and that there is imminent threat. Why do we eat? We eat to satisfy some other unmet need.

• “I’m bored”

• “I’m lonely”

• “I’m stressed”

• “I’m tired”

• “I’m conditioned to eat”

• “It’s social”

• “It’s comforting”

• “Oral fixation”

This is not an exhaustive list of non-physiological reasons of why we eat, but you can begin to understand what triggers our eating behaviors. So the next time you decide to pop some treat in your mouth, ask yourself why are you eating. What need is being met? Is eating the best solution to that unmet need? As you begin to understand why you eat, you can begin to develop healthier patterns.

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