Identify Emotional Eating
What is emotional eating?
Emotional eating is using food as a way to suppress negative feelings. These patterns can start very young. Well-meaning parents can link comfort and soothing with food and as you get older it’s easy to gravitate towards the sweet stodgy foods of youth when adult life is unpleasant.
Emotional eating is different to enjoying a treat. It often happens mindlessly, before you know it a whole bag of chips is gone without you really paying attention or even enjoying it. When eating to satisfy your feelings and not your physical hunger it can be hard to stop, even when your stomach is full.
The problem with emotional eating is that the feelings driving the eating return not long after the fleeting high of the eating has abated. Usually the emotions are joined by guilt and a sense of inadequacy which can spiral into further emotional eating.
Causes of emotional eating
The number one cause of emotional eating is stress. When you’re under pressure the “fight or flight” response is the body’s primitive automatic reaction preparing us to “fight” or “flee” from a perceived threat. Under the influence of stress hormone cortisol you are less sensitive to leptin, the hormone which makes you feel full. Your instincts drive you to refuel with calorie-dense foods even though most modern stresses do not require any extra calories.
Two other common reasons for emotional eating are boredom and loneliness. A sense of emptiness or hollowness can leave you looking for ways to occupy your mouth and your time. Eating can momentarily distract from underlying feelings of purposelessness and dissatisfaction.
Emotional eating creates a neural pathway, but you're still in the driver's seat
If you routinely eat in response to negative feelings this creates a habit, which creates a neural pathway. Eating carbohydrates stimulates serotonin, the “feel good” hormone, which reinforces the pattern. This makes cravings for unhealthy foods feel less like an inclination and more like a compulsion.
The first step to managing emotional eating is knowing which emotions drive you to eat when you aren’t hungry. Become mindful of your moment to moment emotional experience and what seems to trigger your cravings. This can help you rein in stress and repair the emotional problems that lead you to be triggered. Emotional eating is often a symptom of a deeper problem and you may need professional assistance to address it.
There will likely always be red zones in your life that will trigger bouts of emotional eating. Fortunately there are plenty of ways you can minimise the power of these zones to gain control of your eating and live in an appropriate weight zone and in a healthy emotional space.
Emotional eating is using food as a way to suppress negative feelings. These patterns can start very young. Well-meaning parents can link comfort and soothing with food and as you get older it’s easy to gravitate towards the sweet stodgy foods of youth when adult life is unpleasant.
Emotional eating is different to enjoying a treat. It often happens mindlessly, before you know it a whole bag of chips is gone without you really paying attention or even enjoying it. When eating to satisfy your feelings and not your physical hunger it can be hard to stop, even when your stomach is full.
The problem with emotional eating is that the feelings driving the eating return not long after the fleeting high of the eating has abated. Usually the emotions are joined by guilt and a sense of inadequacy which can spiral into further emotional eating.
Causes of emotional eating
The number one cause of emotional eating is stress. When you’re under pressure the “fight or flight” response is the body’s primitive automatic reaction preparing us to “fight” or “flee” from a perceived threat. Under the influence of stress hormone cortisol you are less sensitive to leptin, the hormone which makes you feel full. Your instincts drive you to refuel with calorie-dense foods even though most modern stresses do not require any extra calories.
Two other common reasons for emotional eating are boredom and loneliness. A sense of emptiness or hollowness can leave you looking for ways to occupy your mouth and your time. Eating can momentarily distract from underlying feelings of purposelessness and dissatisfaction.
Emotional eating creates a neural pathway, but you're still in the driver's seat
If you routinely eat in response to negative feelings this creates a habit, which creates a neural pathway. Eating carbohydrates stimulates serotonin, the “feel good” hormone, which reinforces the pattern. This makes cravings for unhealthy foods feel less like an inclination and more like a compulsion.
The first step to managing emotional eating is knowing which emotions drive you to eat when you aren’t hungry. Become mindful of your moment to moment emotional experience and what seems to trigger your cravings. This can help you rein in stress and repair the emotional problems that lead you to be triggered. Emotional eating is often a symptom of a deeper problem and you may need professional assistance to address it.
There will likely always be red zones in your life that will trigger bouts of emotional eating. Fortunately there are plenty of ways you can minimise the power of these zones to gain control of your eating and live in an appropriate weight zone and in a healthy emotional space.