Emotional Eating

Sometimes the strongest food cravings hit when you’re at your weakest point emotionally. You may turn to food for comfort (consciously or unconsciously) when facing a difficult problem, feeling stressed or even feeling bored.

Emotional eating can be self-sabotaging. The good news is that if you’re prone to emotional eating you can take steps to regain control of your eating habits.

Emotional eating is a way to suppress or soothe negative emotions such as stress, anger, fear, boredom, sadness and loneliness. Major life events, or more commonly, the hassles of daily life can trigger negative emotions that lead to emotional eating.

These triggers might include:

· Relationship conflicts

· Work or school stressors

· Fatigue

· Financial pressures

· Health problems

If you’re feeling emotionally distressed you might turn to impulsive or binge eating and quickly consume whatever is convenient without enjoyment.

In fact, your emotions can become so tied to your eating habits that you automatically reach for a treat whenever you’re angry or stressed without thinking about what you’re doing.

Food also serves as a distraction. If you’re worried about an upcoming event or stewing over a conflict, you may focus on eating comfort food instead of dealing with the painful situation.

Whatever emotions drive you to overeat, the end result is often the same. The satisfaction you might feel from emotional eating is only temporary since emotions return, which might then lead to feelings of guilt. This can also lead to an unhealthy cycle of your emotions triggering you to overeat, feeling guilty and then feeling bad and overeating again.

When negative emotions threaten to trigger emotional eating, you can take steps to control this behavior:

Keep a food diary. Write down what you eat, how much you eat, when you eat, how you’re feeling when you eat and how hungry you are. Over time, you might see patterns that reveal the connection between mood and food.

Tame your stress. Stress contributes to your emotional eating. Try a stress management technique such as yoga, meditation or deep breathing.

Have a hunger reality check. Is your hunger physical or emotional? If you ate just a few hours ago and don’t have a rumbling in your stomach, you’re probably not hungry. Give the impulse time to pass.

Get support. You’re more likely to give in to emotional eating if you lack a good support network. Lean on family and friends or consider joining a support group.

Fight boredom. Instead of snacking when you’re not hungry, distract yourself and substitute a healthier behavior. Take a walk, watch a movie, play with your cat, listen to music, read, or call a friend.

Take away temptation. Don’t keep hard to resist comfort foods in your home. If you feel hungry or blue, postpone your trip to the grocery store until you have your emotions in check.

Don’t deprive yourself and snack healthy. Eat satisfying amounts of healthier foods, enjoy an occasional treat and get plenty of variety to help curb the impulse to emotionally eat.

Learn from setbacks. If you have an episode of emotional eating, forgive yourself and start fresh the next day. Try to learn from the experience and make a plan for how you can prevent it in the future. Focus on the positive changes you’re making in your eating habits and give yourself credit for making changes that will lead to better health.

If you'd like support for yourself or your child, schedule an appointment with Dr. Sina today.