Big Smile, No Teeth: Stress eating his way to oblivion

Stressed at work? Don't fall into the overeating trap our columnist fell into. — 123

I've spending a lot of time in the office lately. Doing office stuff. I’ll spare you the details. If you work in an office, you can insert whatever private horror story you want right here and it’s going to work.

But I realised that every day, the one thing I look forward to is lunch.

And not a normal, healthy, dainty lunch, that I eat and then feel fresh and ready to go afterwards. No. I want a greasy, oily disgusting lunch that makes me feel guilty to even look at, and by the time I’ve finished it, it makes me question my self-worth as a human being.

Doesn’t sound particularly healthy does it?

Because it’s not. I realised. I was stress eating.

And I think I am far from unique.

Stress eating happens for a few reasons. The first is emotional regulation. Eating food, particularly high calorie or sugary foods, can boost levels of the “happy hormones”, dopamine and serotonin, and create a feeling of relief or pleasure.

This response to eating high calorie foods comes from the ancient need to find and consume these useful foods. The problem is finding high calorie foods isn’t as tough as when we lived in caves – now we can easily gorge on them for that quick hit of neurotransmitters.

Besides the relief of eating something high calorie (aka disgusting) is the fact that when we’re under stress the body produces cortisol. Cortisol can increase appetite and cravings for the aforementioned disgusting food with bloated calorie counts.

The danger is this can then become habit-forming. If I continue to turn to food for comfort, I associate stress and eating, and the response becomes ingrained and automatic. Whenever I’m stressed, I want to eat. Which can be an issue because I don’t know about you, but I’m stressed a lot.

The effects of stress eating aren’t hard to figure out. Weight gain, nutritional imbalances, increased stress and anxiety from the guilt of eating disgusting food again and again.

Clearly, eating to deal with stress is not optimal. But what to do?

Other than cutting out the stress, and I doubt many of us can quit the stressors in our lives unfortunately, we first need to identify what is happening. We need to realise we are indeed stress eating.

I noticed it because every day I would wait impatiently for lunchtime so I could to order that greasy burger with extra grease, and then when I got home, I would wander the kitchen looking for more food even though I hadn’t feel hungry since late in 2023. Yes, I know, it’s 2025.

These are some of the steps I’ve been taking and they’ve been quite effective.

The first step is to identify the triggers. If it’s something at work, or a family member, be aware that after one of these encounters you are susceptible to stress eat. If you’re not so good at spotting these kinds of things, keep a journal and write a note after every meal about what you ate, and how you were feeling before hand.

The other thing is to try to deal with stress in a more healthy way. Schedule physical activities. Yoga. Go for a walk. Do push ups in your office. Physical activity can curb the cravings caused by increased cortisol.

If physical activity isn’t your thing, or you don’t have an outlet for it, then try doing relaxing activities. Draw. Read. Knit. Listen to music. Stare at the wall (otherwise known as meditating). Do whatever you need to to destress without turning to a carb- and oil-laden buffet of food.

Finally, have some healthy snacks ready. Nuts, fruits, and vegetables are great to have handy to eat as you are suffering whatever stress you’re going through, to satiate somewhat that craving to eat yourself to a greasy death.

Having identified the stress eater in me, I’ve definitely tried to stop, including taking some of these steps. Also because my pants weren’t fitting and I’m very cheap and do not want to buy new pants. So I’ve implemented these things and I’m starting to get back on track.

That said, some days the stress is there, and I give in to the cravings.

Now if you’ll excuse me, my greasy burger just arrived.

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Big Smile, No Teeth columnist Jason Godfrey – a model who once was told to give the camera a ‘big smile, no teeth’ – has worked internationally for two decades in fashion and continues to work in dramas, documentaries, and lifestyle programming. Write to him at [e-mail] and follow him on Instagram @bigsmilenoteeth and facebook.com/bigsmilenoteeth. The views expressed here are entirely the writer's own.