A significant percentage of the people that present each day in general practice are above their most healthy weight. The challenge is how – and what – can be done to help them. It takes more than knowledge to create change.  

People exceed their most healthy weight through a complex mix of behaviour, biology, psychology, culture and environment. Helping patients to start to make changes is like helping them to put a complicated jigsaw puzzle together.

Two pieces of the puzzle include a patient’s knowledge of what is healthy to eat and an understanding that it is important to be physically active. And while these two pieces are relevant, they are just two pieces of the healthy weight management puzzle for most people.

Other pieces include helping patients to eat more slowly, to feel better about their body image, to not be seduced by quick-fix diets, to not feel guilty about eating various types of foods (guilt often leads to all-or-nothing thinking that results in eating more, not less), and, importantly, to decrease a key eating behaviour known as non-hungry eating.* 

Non-Hungry Eating

Anyone can eat food when not feeling physically hungry. This sort of eating can be called non-hungry eating and can include overeating, grazing, picking, nibbling and bingeing.

Non-hungry eating can occur at any time – at mealtimes, in between and even during the night. Many people (patients and health professionals alike) can do a significant amount of this sort of eating.^1-4

It is normal to do some non-hungry eating, but when it occurs too often it can become habitual and may cause significant weight gain.

Why is it so common and so easy to end up doing too much non-hungry eating?

First, it may be because people are not sure if they are really physically hungry or not. Sometimes it can be very difficult to tell the difference between a physical hunger and a feeling of wanting to put food in the mouth.

The percentage of non-hungry eating that can occur may range from 30% to 100% of total eating.
Second, patients might not be aware of the many different reasons that can contribute to their non-hungry eating (see box).

Eating awareness

A great tool to help patients decrease some of their non-hungry eating is to encourage them before they eat, to check in on a hunger/fullness scale (see box).

By simply being more mindful, many people can quite quickly start to decrease the amount of non-hungry eating they are doing.

In order to eat more mindfully, an eating awareness diary (as distinct from a food diary that simply asks patients to list the type of food they are eating) is also a great tool to help people observe what is happening in more detail around food.

An eating awareness diary is a tool that helps patients to increase their eating awareness, identify the factors that contribute to their non-hungry eating, and, as a result of that, decrease the amount of non-hungry eating they do.

It is a resource that research^5,6 has shown to be effective.

*Non-hungry eating is a registered trademark of Dr Rick Kausman’s company, If Not Dieting.

 Understanding eating habits (140.92 KB)

References available at www.medicalobserver.com.au

Content Updated April 15, 2009