When grief came for me, I desperately tried to fill the void and sop up the sadness in rich restaurant meals and far too much alcohol. Other days, I ate buttered white rice on the floor with my dog and called it dinner.
I lost my hunger, the intention, and care for what I put in my body, but I ignored my newfound indifference and filled it until it could not be filled anymore. I saw that this was “unhealthy,” but shame kept the circle spinning while the good intentions faded. I put on weight, accelerated my own downward health spiral, and spent every spare moment on the couch in a trance of exhaustion and raw and unexplored emotions.
I had people, but I’ve never felt more alone.
What I discovered though is that couldn’t have been farther from the truth. Changes in what, how, and why we eat are one of the most consistent findings in people experiencing profound grief.
Across dozens of studies, I saw one stark conclusion: grief creates genuine nutritional risk. Real, measurable, documented involuntary weight loss and related health consequences. The kind of finding that makes you feel, retroactively, a little less crazy for the weeks you spent eating crackers and calling it lunch.
But it’s not just that appetite fluctuates, or that the body simply doesn’t send the same hunger signals as before the worst happened. What the research describes is quieter but even more significant.
Following loss, preparing and eating food stop bringing pleasure. That thing that used to make you happy - trying a new recipe, experiencing new flavors for the first time - becomes another task that feels, at times, insurmountable.
And that emotional loss cuts far deeper than just the absence of a pleasurable experience. It cuts off the emotional connection to your family and loved ones in the exact moment when you feel like everything else has been stripped away. Not making that chicken dish your husband loved, the one that filled the house up with the smell of garlic and cream. Choosing to shelve that recipe book you crafted from your grandmother’s recipes, and missing out on the memories of that famous Sunday gravy, with family crowded around the table. All of that goes flat. Sensory experiences you didn’t know you lived for until they were gone.
The research itself, although primarily focused on those who lost spouses late in life, carries through to any number of losses a human can experience - friend, family, or pet. It found strong evidence for a relationship between bereavement and nutritional risk and involuntary weight loss, and moderate evidence for impaired sleep quality and increased alcohol consumption.”
