Ep. 77 : 10 Ways to Stop Boredom Snacking This Summer

Summer break is here… and so is the boredom snacking. In this episode, I explain why teens often eat out of boredom and what to do about it. 

You’ll learn how dopamine plays a role in food cravings and how to use 10 simple strategies—like “urge surfing,” boredom busters, and structured meal times—to feel better without snacking all day. 

Small habits = huge results!

I’m Dr. Jenny Gourgari—pediatric endocrinologist, certified in obesity medicine and a health coach.
After helping hundreds of teens struggling with their weight and hormones, I’ve created a whole new path by doing what most programs miss: balance puberty hormones naturally and create habits that actually last.

Here's what makes this different:
✅ No dieting. No calorie counting. No shame.
✅ No more food fights between parents and teens.
✅ No weight obsession—just healthy habits
✅ Real science behind how puberty hormones affect weight
✅ A safe, supportive approach that prevents eating disorders

Because when teens understand their hormones and get the right support, they don’t just lose weight—they gain strength, energy, confidence, and freedom!

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Transcript

welcome to another episode of the Lifestyle and WEIGHT Loss for Teens podcast. This is Dr. Jenny Gourgari And on today's episode I will talk about something that I hear a lot, especially during the summer from the teenagers I work with.   📍 It is the summertime and there's no rigid schedule, teenagers have a different schedule. Actually, they have no schedule, find themselves often at home not knowing what to do. They're bored.  They go to the kitchen and they eat a lot. So boredom eating is very common. It happens all the time. Winter, summer, it doesn't matter. But during the summer, I would say it's even more common.

And the reason is because we just don't know what to do. Teenagers dunno what to do. So if this is you and you're finding yourself bored and then going at the kitchen, opening the cabinets, opening the fridge, trying to find what to eat, or you find yourself eating here and there without being really hungry, then this episode is for you and we're gonna talk about what are some of the ways to fight this summertime boredom eating.

  📍 First of all, why does this happen? Why does boredom lead to snacking?   📍 It has to do with the one hormone that is called dopamine. This is the hormone that makes your brain immediately feel better. Now, dopamine is a hormone that is created once there is something pleasure.  Food gives you pleasure.

So when you're bored, your brain wants something to do, it wants some pleasure, you get food, then dopamine is secreted and that makes you feel better. Okay? And most of the time you're not actually hungry. What you're looking for is you're looking for this dopamine surge to make you feel better by eating something.

And particularly, usually it's something that is not the healthiest option.

What can we do instead? Number one is I would encourage you to create a "boredom list" of activities that you can do when you are bored that can give you pleasure, that does not involve food. Like for example, you can say, when I'm bored, I'm going to, try to solve the puzzle. I'm   📍 going to put on YouTube and I'm going to start dancing. I'm going to organize my room. I'm going to call a friend. I'm going to make a playlist with my favorite songs   📍  📍 I'm going to create a five minute craft. I'm going to paint, have a list of boredom, if I can call it like this boredom list that can get you out of this very quickly, gives you immediately something fun to do that you have already thought about and that does not include food.

Number two is I encourage you to ask yourself,   📍 am I really hungry right now or am I bored? Am I really hungry and I want to eat or am I bored and I don't know what else to do.  And that's why I am looking for food just by asking yourself this question that increases your awareness about what is going on. And if you have more awareness of what you are doing, you are less likely to go and eat. You are more likely to think about it again and then make healthier choices.

Number three is   📍 have a structure, a meal, and snack time, every day. So that means that even though you don't have a structured routine around your school  and around your afterschool activities, you can still have a routine and you say, I'm going to eat lunch at one o'clock. I'm gonna have my snack at 5:00 PM I'm gonna have my dinner at 7:00 PM. And try to, plan your day so that you still have that structure mealtime in your day. Now if this doesn't work for you, then that's okay, but at least you don't get into this mode of constantly snacking if it is not that time that you have already decided that this is the snack time that's the purpose of having this structure meal snack time.

  📍  📍 Number four is to always keep a bottle of water every day.  This is my favorite bottle that I use every day is quite big. And I have a few sips of water every day. I find it like having cold water is easier for me.

Maybe for you is like sparkling water or maybe it is, have it with a little bit of fruit or whatever it is but hydrating yourself can often cut back on that feeling of boredom because again, you give yourself hydration.

Number five is you can   📍 go for a quick walk. You can get out of the house, you can change the environment. You can remove yourself from the kitchen.  You can go out in the sun. You can expose yourself to a different environment so that you actually, find yourself doing something and going for a walk is a great thing to do is very easy. It does not require any equipment, so you just go out and walk and then come back. That usually refreshes your brain and you are in a different position to get out of this boredom.

Number six is try to socialize   📍 call a friend. You can call your sister, you can call a classmate you can FaceTime them or you can actually meet with them and do something fun with  them or meet with them and organize your schedule. During the summer so that even though you're not going to school, you can still keep in touch with your friends and meet with them regularly. They may also be a feeling bored.

Number seven,   📍 you can do something with your hands like coloring, painting.  Doing some kind of craft can always keep you busy because or like you can even cook a healthy meal if you want. Just get involved. Something that you actively see yourself doing something helpful that can, kill your boredom in a productive way.

Number eight is you can try   📍 to listen to your favorite playlist or you can try to create your own playlist. You can also listen to a favorite podcast.  You can listen more episodes of this podcast if you want to, but the idea is there's always a lot of interesting, information. There are interesting books. You can listen to a book or like an audio book if you want. Find yourself listening to, comedy shows, like something that it's fun for you, right?

And tip number nine. Is what you can do is you can practice what we call "   📍 urge surfing". So basically you surf on the urge instead of giving in in the urge 'cause this urge to go and grab something usually has a peak and then it goes down.  So if you are able to sustain that feeling of the urge without acting upon it, you are gonna see that the urge is gonna go away. So you, again, you just have to be aware that right now I have this urge, but if I don't, if I'm able not to do anything for 10 minutes, it usually goes away. And if you want, you can even give yourself permission to have that snack that you're craving or that you want to do. If you still want it after 10 minutes.

And finally is try to make your environment smarter. And what I mean by that is because you know you are gonna spend more time in the kitchen, you know you're gonna spend more time in the house,   📍 you can remove all the junk food. Don't just bring chips cookies and all those things in the house.  So when you are in the house, there are like healthy alternatives instead of you seeing all those unhealthy snacks just don't even bring them in the house.

So my final thought is that you don't absolutely don't have to do all of those things. If there was one of those 10 tips that sounded more interesting to you, then I suggest you just follow one or two of those tips and, even if you are not successful in doing that in the beginning, like keep practicing. Even if you get 1% better every day, that's a huge success. Small habits can have huge results if we're able to be consistent over time and we're not giving up.

   📍  📍 Feel free to check out lifestyleforteens.com/free for more free resources, if you found this episode helpful, feel free to share it with another friend. I'll talk to you next week.