Emotional eating is a topic that seems to get a lot of stick from people, when really this can be a really useful tool for someone who is in need of comfort. Of course, like any coping mechanism there can be a time when it does become a problem and this is usually when it is the only tool that we have to bring ourselves comfort.
Before we delve into emotional eating more, it’s important to understand the definition. Research defines emotional eating as “emotional eating or eating in response to negative affect if a dysregulated physiological response to intense emotion since the typical response to negative affect is loss of appetite”. However when completing Pixie Turner Nutrition’s webinar on this topic she brought to light that this can be pretty problematic for various reasons including that this definition assumes overeating and assumes that it is done due to an intense emotion. A definition that I loved from her was this
Pixie Turner Nutrition
“Emotional eating can be an attempt to solve a symbolic metaphorical hunger with physical fullness”
This definition shows that emotional eating is not wrong and suggests that the problem lies with the emotion rather than in the comfort seeking behaviour of eating food.
I always say to my clients when talking about emotional eating that it is one tool that we have in our emotional tool box, it can be helpful in some situations but in others it doesn’t quiet do the job how we want it to. I also explain that we eat for emotional reasons all the time. If your best friend is going through a break up, what do you do? You go over and spend time and eat ice cream, chocolate, pizza – all the typical comfort foods. For religious celebrations or for birthdays we eat, the emotion here being joy and celebration.
As said before, emotional eating becomes a problem because of the emotion, not because we are eating.
Causes of Emotional Eating
There is no one size fits all when it comes to emotional eating, people may do it for different reasons and causes. Some causes can lie deep in someone’s psyche due to trauma others can be due to emotional dysregulation, not knowing who to turn to and so seek comfort in food. Some it may be caused by parenting methods when they were growing up, diet culture and also shame. There are more reasons, but this is just a little snippet of what could cause someone to want to emotionally eat.
Ways To Help Emotional Eating
The best way to help with emotional eating is by going to some sort of therapy. This may be via a nutritionist, a counselor or a mix of both depending on how deep these issues run. Also learning about our emotions and our hunger and how they manifest is also really important. In the clinic when working through this construct I ask my clients to write down how they are feeling when they eat this is just so that they understand if there was an emotional response to why they were eating and what this trigger may have been.
I have laid out some ways that may help you to help regulate some difficult emotions and other things to turn to instead of food.
1. Go for a walk
Spending some time outside and spending time away from that emotion and looking at it objectively can help you to calm down and feel better.
2. Talking to a friend
Spending some time reaching out to a friend to talk about what you are feeling can be a helpful tool.
3. Quick 5 minute meditation
Having some time away from the situation that is causing you stress can be so beneficial. Letting you ground yourself away from the main stressor and evaluating how you are feeling to better understand what you may need to do next.
It’s important to remember that if these things don’t hit the spot, you can still eat it (that is what you think will help you to feel better!). Remember, this is one tool that we can use but we should explore other avenues first to see if we need something else.
Spending time understanding our own self-care can also be beneficial to help keep negative emotions at bay. Doing the things that we don’t like to do but feels great once we have done them e.g. cleaning our room is also important to add to our routines.
Working through emotional eating can bring up a lot of issues and triggers that people may not have realised before. Which is why if wanting to work through this to get additional support via a healthcare professional.
There are some great resources that you can read, however, to help you to learn about intuitive eating which in itself will have tools to help you with emotional eating.
Books
- Just eat it by Laura Thomas PhD and new book How to just eat it (out 7/1/21)
- Eating in the light of the moon by Anita Johnston PhD.
Podcasts
- Dieting Gone Bad
- Don’t Salt My Game
Instagrams
- @pixienutrition
- @laurathomasphd
- @realistic.body.therapist
The main takeaway from this is that emotional eating is like a crutch, it can support most of your emotional weight but over time it becomes less sturdy. We need to add more crutches so that if one gets taken away or we can’t access it, we still have all our other crutches that we can use.
