Is emotional need driving diabetes surge?

Once again we are hearing news reports about how type 2 diabetes is surging in the UK becoming more like the USA and Canada.

According to the BBC

From 1997 to 2003 there was a 74% rise in new cases of diabetes.

And by 2005, more than 4% of the population was classed as having diabetes - nearly double the rate of 10 years earlier.

This growing problem is driven by the increasing number of people who are overweight or obese. Our love of fast foods that are often fatty and fried together with a much less active lifestyle have led to us piling on the pounds and so driving the increase in type 2 diabetes. (Type 1 diabetes is a heredity condition that affects insulin production in the body.)

But is there another story here? I think so.

In my one to one work with clients who wanted to lose weight the most common theme was that of emotions driving eating patterns. Often I have found that low self esteem and low level depression lead to changes in eating patterns. It seems that in a strange way we are trying to feed our positive emotions by snacking and eating sweet or fatty foods.

These types of foods are exactly the ones we find most satisfying to eat. The satisfaction is partly down to our hunter gatherer history, in our cave man/woman past, fatty and sweet foods were hard to come by but very necessary for our survival through the cold winter months. So we developed a strong appreciation for foods like these that survives until the modern day. The difference now is that fatty and sweet foods are very easy and cheap to find, meaning that we are more likely to eat them more often.

So in a way we get an emotional boost from eating these foods and given the stress and anxiety that many people suffer with today it's no surprise that this feels good to do. Until we get on the scales that is and discover that it is easier to gain weight than it is to let it go.

So are we destined to be type 2 diabetes victims? No, not if we recognize that there are better ways to deal with negative emotions than eating.

So if you have been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes it is not just your diet that will need to change but also the way in which you deal with your emotions. By finding more effective ways to deal with our emotions it will be much easier to deal with our increasing waistlines.