Food Psychology

Are you a picky eater? Do you worry that food will make you vomit or choke? Do you find eating to be a chore? If yes, this book is for you! Your struggles could be caused by Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID); a disorder characterized by eating a limited variety or volume of food. Join Drs. Jennifer Thomas, Kendra Becker, and Kamryn Eddy—three ARFID experts at Harvard Medical School—to learn how to beat your ARFID at home and unlock a healthier relationship with food.

We all know that as a nation our mental health is in crisis. But what most don't know is that a critical ingredient in this debate, and a crucial part of the solution—what we eat—is being ignored. Nutrition has more influence on what we feel, who we become and how we behave than we could ever have imagined. It affects everything from our decision-making to aggression and violence. Yet mental health disorders are overwhelmingly treated as 'mind' problems as if the physical brain—and how we feed it—is irrelevant.

When Food Is Love examines the motivations behind bingeing and obsessive dieting, and explains how such compulsive behavior sabotages intimate relationships. With compassion and penetrating wisdom, Geneen Roth reveals how to break destructive emotional patterns and learn to satisfy all the hungers, physical and emotional - that make us human.

An extraordinary, powerful connection exists between feeling and feeding that, if damaged, may lead to one relying on food for emotional support, rather than seeking authentic happiness. This unique workbook takes on the seven emotions that plague problem eaters—guilt, shame, helplessness, anxiety, disappointment, confusion, and loneliness—and shows them how to embrace and learn from their feelings.

In How to Beat Extreme Hunger, neurodivergent eating disorder recovery coach Livia Sara delves into the biological mechanisms behind extreme hunger, explaining why it happens and how to navigate it. Through a blend of science and lived experience, she tackles the fears that keep you stuck: uncontrollable weight gain, becoming "addicted" to food, developing binge eating disorder, and beyond.

"Is this normal picky eating stuff, or is there more going on here?" It's a question many parents worry about, and the same question one mom asked Jennifer Friedman in a session about her son Ryder, who struggled to eat more than chicken nuggets and french fries. In Stories of Extreme Picky Eating, Jennifer invites you into her nutritional therapy office to meet real kids struggling with serious food aversions, and learn the strategies that helped them come to eat a wider variety of nutritious foods with more ease.

If you're an emotional overeater, you may turn to food to cope with stress and sadness, enhance joy, and bring a sense of comfort. But over time, overeating can cause weight gain, heart disease, diabetes, and many other health problems. In 50 More Ways to Soothe Yourself Without Food, you'll find 50 more mindful and healthy activities to help you replace your need to overeat.

Do you struggle with emotional eating, especially when stressed or anxious? Do your eating habits disrupt your life and leave you feeling guilty afterward? 2.8 million adults face binge eating, often linked to emotional eating. While it may seem like a lack of self-control, emotional eating is more complex than that. We eat our feelings for many reasons–to escape stress or cope with challenges. Left unchecked, emotional eating can harm your health, social life, and finances. But you can change course and overcome emotional eating–it’s not easy, but it is possible.

If you eat to help manage your emotions, you may have discovered that it doesn't work. Once you're done eating, you might even feel worse. Eating can all too easily become a strategy for coping with depression, anxiety, boredom, stress, and anger and a reliable reward when it's time to celebrate.

In Dead Weight, Emmeline Clein recounts her struggle with disordered eating alongside the stories of other women: historical figures, pop culture celebrities, and the girls she’s known and loved. Through the story of her own sickness, the raw recollections of interview subjects, and dispatches from social media rabbit holes, Clein challenges stereotypes and renders statistics and science deeply personal and urgent.

Is your child a picky eater? Do they insist on having the same foods served over and over again? For many kids, picky eating is a sensory issue—whether it's the smell, taste, texture, or appearance of food. So, how can you help your child overcome these sensory sensitivities and ensure that they get the nourishment they need? Written by a pediatric occupational therapist with a specialty certification in feeding, eating, and swallowing, Raising Adventurous Eaters offers eight evidence-based sensory strategies to help kids foster a healthy relationship with food.

Somehow you find shopping almost addictive and can't help yourself but then, your great purchases soon mount up and you find you have spent quite a bit of money? What are the signs of overspending? What types of buyers exist, do you know? This audiobook makes a great gift and can be listened to from any section or sequentially. These days, the focus is completely on consumerism, and this can make it hard for those who simply like to browse and buy. This audiobook will provide proven insights into shopaholic spending sprees and how to stop, get out of debt, and save money.

In First Bite, the beloved food writer Bee Wilson draws on the latest research from food psychologists, neuroscientists, and nutritionists to reveal that our food habits are shaped by a whole host of factors, including family, culture, memory, gender, hunger, and love.

Imagine unlocking your full brain power with ADHD-optimized nutrition. You don't need a fancy pantry overhaul. The truth is many brain-boosting foods are affordable and readily available. Not only will this book help your focus and mood, but it might even save you time and money!

Do you struggle with your relationship with food? Are you tired of chasing diets and feeling like a failure? Emotional eating (stress eating, binge eating) can feel like a never-ending cycle of guilt and shame. You turn to food for comfort or stress relief, but the relief is only temporary, and the weight gain and health consequences can be long-lasting.

Women of all ages struggle with disordered eating, preoccupation with food, and body anxiety. Journalist Cole Kazdin was one such woman, and she set out to see if the impossibility of her own full recovery from an eating disorder was all in her head. Interviewing women across the country as well as the world’s most renowned researchers, she discovered that most people with eating disorders never receive treatment—the fact that she did made her one of the lucky ones.

Many scientists and doctors who think "outside the box" firmly believe now that there are physiological factors which contribute to behavior problems like ADHD and ADD. You need to understand that children and adults who struggle with mental disorders very likely have issues physically and the principal suspect is the digestive system. And food quality can be the primary cause of digestive problems which lead to mental disorders ultimately.

Food writer and clinical psychologist Scott Haas wanted to know what went on inside the mind of a top chef - and what kind of emotional dynamics drove the fast-paced, intense interactions inside a great restaurant. To capture all the heat and hunger, he spent 18 months immersed in the kitchen of James Beard Award-winner Tony Maws's restaurant, Craigie on Main, in Boston. He became part of the family, experiencing the drama first-hand.

Sound interesting? The author thinks so too! Listen to Addiction 101 and learn about addiction, mental health, recovery, and relapse.

Why do we consume 35 percent more food when eating with one other person, and 75 percent more when dining with three? How do we explain the fact that people who like strong coffee drink more of it under bright lighting? And why does green ketchup just not work? The answer is gastrophysics, the new area of sensory science pioneered by Oxford professor Charles Spence.