Despair can be defined as the complete loss or absence of hope. Are you there yet? The sources of despair are many. It can come after a significant loss or after smaller losses that seem to pile up. It can be caused by battling situations in your life that never seem to let up. Despair and depression can be exacerbated by loneliness which affects 20% of Americans and has been rising in significance during the pandemic quarantine.

There are a lot of reasons to be depressed right now (smile)...but if you have binge eating disorder, food addiction or emotional eating, you may also struggle with depression and anxiety that can leave you feeling tired, isolated, anxious and on edge and...engaging in unwanted eating behaviors.

You may divide foods into "good" and "bad" categories. You may deprive yourself of foods you think are bad for you and then end up craving them and overeating them at a later time. If you have obsessive thoughts about food, those thoughts may be related to how you use food to numb your feelings or deal with stress or to use food for comfort. Perhaps your focus on food is all about fixing things you don’t like about your body, rather than enjoying the food you are eating.