"All mushrooms are edible, but some are only edible once," Terry Pratchett wrote (1). Maybe you don’t think that’s funny. Nor are the latest warnings that being overweight may be another COVID-19 risk factor (2). But humour might … sweeten the deal.
I found an academic article on the relationship between laughter and weight loss (3). It explores the idea of potential overlap between nutrition and “therapeutic humour”, and suggests that people might learn to use humour as a “food substitute,” so reducing feelings of hunger. The authors propose that therapeutic humour can be used to limit emotional eating, as a way of managing stress.
Not all overweight people are emotional eaters, and not all emotional eaters are overweight; however, rates of emotional eating during times of stress are higher among overweight individuals as compared to healthy-weight individuals. Experimental diets high in carbohydrates resulted in a better mood than high-protein diets.
“She had a taste for sugar, however, and this meant that a doughnut or a cake might follow the sandwich. She was a traditionally built lady …” ― Alexander McCall Smith (4)
Some of us learned that eating when anxious felt good, and that may have led to compulsive eating, and possibly to obesity. Another theory asserts that obese people have a limited hunger awareness, so they feel the same when hungry or uncomfortable emotionally.
So discovering your own way to replace eating with laughter could be helpful.
Two of my favourite ways are listening to CBC Radio’s The Debaters, and Because News. Another is reading stories about a neighbour’s personable chickens. And, I just saw a CHEK news moment showing a viral clip of 2 little brothers unstoppably laughing over sharing a huge bottle of pop. Like the station staff, I was left smiling, too. Facebook clips of funny animal antics, for example, a kitten chasing a bear out of its yard, make me laugh. We don’t all have the same sense of humour, but we all have things that make us laugh.
Two facts remain clear: first, emotional eating is real and affects many overweight people; second, it is not a healthy habit for most of us. Emotional eaters who struggle to remain at a healthy weight can likely benefit from the intentional “humour-substitute” approach as one of their tactics.
We’d love to see you at TOPS. We support and encourage every member to meet their health goals through developing better habits. We meet every Wednesday morning at the Community Centre, from 9:00 to 10:00. We’re a low-cost, enjoyable, understanding self-help program that happily welcomes everyone, and we laugh a lot. (Your first visit is free.)
References:
(1) https://tinyurl.com/yabf25wl
(2) https://tinyurl.com/ybwv9229
(3) https://tinyurl.com/y9deqvbo
(4) https://tinyurl.com/yaawbv2x