Survival Instincts

Survival Instincts

I absolutely hate the term “comfort food.” Whenever I see any type of advertising or labeling that indicates some type of food brings comfort my blood pressure immediately rises and I start silently lashing out at whatever moron decided that was a good idea.

I recently listened to a TED talks on vulnerability. In that short lecture, the speaker said that people use all kinds of things for an escape. Some people use drugs, alcohol, prescription medication, and some people use food. I talk to a lot of people who use food for an escape, a “comfort.”

It makes sense from a scientific standpoint that food brings comfort to people. For the past thousands of years, our ancestors spent a lot of time worrying about food and survival, and when they found food their worry was gone.

Only in the last hundred years, or possibly until after the Depression era, that food became easy and convenient. Essentially since the beginning of time, food relieved humankind from anxiety; and rightfully so.  According to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs your physiological needs: food, sleep, sex, etc, are the basis to comfort. It’s only been until recently where access of food has not been an issue for survival.

Mankind is use to the biggest “threat” (survival) being resolved by food. Now that we’ve pretty much established our physiological needs, our biggest "threats" are the next few levels on Maslow’s triangle: Safety: security of the family, health, property, etc; Love/Belonging: friendship, family, sexual intimacy; and Esteem: self-esteem, confidence, respect, and achievement.

Our ancestors were stressed/felt threatened, ate food, and were not stressed or threatened anymore because their survival was no longer at risk. Today, we’re stressed about making ends meet, being loved, our families health, intimate relationships, being successful, or whatever, but instead of making choices to take care of the actual issue, people are still looking to food to clear their anxiety.

Some may argue this is due to behavioral genetics. Some scientists believe that our genes determine more than just eye or hair color; that more abstract traits such as intelligence, personality, aggression, and sexual orientation are also encoded in our DNA—so interesting to read about btw.

It could also be argued that these bad eating habits are actually learned behaviors from parents or caregivers, and most likely, it's a combination. 

Anyway, despite whatever genetics or learned behaviors passed down generation to generation indicating food will give us comfort, everyone still has a brain to figure out what will solve the problems you have (big or small) and ACTUALLY provide comfort and happiness--and it's not food. 

I’m a firm believer that nurture can overcome any nature:) We were all given some type of genetic lemons in life, you can make lemonade because that’s what feels right, or you can be smart and make salad dressing <3 span="span">