Emotional eating

Causes

Emotional eating is a complex subject, and in extreme forms, it may cross over to eating disorders. In those cases, it needs to be addressed by a Registered Dietician who has specific training to deal with it. However, most people deal with mild emotional eating, which is what I am going to cover here.

The most common aspect of emotional eating is comfort. In fact, many people talk about "comfort" foods, often foods that provide comfort, and of course, they don't tend to be very healthy. Common ones are pizza or ice cream. This is a lot more "biological" than you might assume; rats in high-stress environments also opt for tastier food!

Most importantly, it's worth noting that studies have found that emotional eating often does not actually reduce emotional distress, which is supposedly the goal. You think it's going to make you feel better, but it's not. In fact, in many cases, it makes you feel worse! Because most people feel guilty after an episode of emotional eating. Hence the strong link with eating disorders; this type of cycle can easily get out of hand.

Second, keep in mind that every time you engage in emotional eating, you are reinforcing that pattern in your brain. You are teaching yourself that food is an adequate coping mechanism for emotional distress. And this can take very innocent forms, for instance, going to get some fast food after a bad day at work.

Emotional eating is especially tricky when dieting because people tend to rationalize that it was out of hunger, and this isn't the case. Emotional eating is done for emotional comfort and to obtain pleasure. No one binge eats a pound of spinach for emotional comfort. This is very obvious for "normal" people, but when people are dieting, this distinction can be more difficult to realize because you might be both hungry and craving emotional comfort through food at the same time.

Part of what drives emotional eating is not only the pleasure of the food itself, but also the fact that you're being distracted from whatever is causing you emotional distress. If you are doing something else, whatever that is, it shifts your attention from your problems. Thus it provides a sense of escapism.

What to do

The most obvious solution is to try to address the cause of the emotional distress directly. Of course, this is a lot easier said than done. Sometimes people have serious problems that are very difficult to cope with. Problems can't just magically go away. Maybe you just discovered you or someone close to has a serious illness, maybe your pet has died, maybe someone closed passed away, etc. These are very tough problems, and they are not easy to "address".

Nevertheless, it's worth keeping this in mind. Yes, sometimes the emotional burden is indeed overwhelming and close to impossible to address, but sometimes it isn't. Sometimes you can address it. For instance, you might have had a small fight with your partner, and you're distressed about it. You can eat as emotional comfort, but you can also try to go talk with your partner and sort things out. In fact, this will very likely happen regardless, with or without food. Or maybe you had a bad day at work where a coworker was being mean to you, but perhaps you can reframe that event into that maybe the coworker was just having a bad day, and it wasn't anything personal. Or perhaps they are indeed a mean person, but that doesn't say anything about you.

You can try to find other ways to cope with that stress. Mindfulness and Cognitive-Behavioral-Therapy are very useful tools. They help you confront negative emotions, and therefore there is a lessened need to shy away from them by engaging in emotional eating. Writing about your problem or talking with a friend are also good options.

But there are more casual ways of coping as well. They can still be considered escapism, but sometimes that's acceptable. If they are done in ways that are not harmful to you, it's a justifiable way of coping, at least in the short term. For example, you can engage in a hobby that you enjoy.

Exercise (in any form!) is a great way to relieve stress because not only does it provide the attention diversion that is craved with emotional eating, but they also make you feel better. However, any type of activity works, and the more you enjoy it, the better. It can be painting, writing, playing music, playing board games, video games, etc.