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- You Have Sudden Food Cravings for Specific, High-Fat Foods. While not all eating is or should be in response to physiological hunger, there tends to be a difference between hunger that’s spurred by a physical need to eat and hunger that’s spurred by emotions.
- You Find Yourself Mindlessly Stress Eating. If after hearing bad news or fighting with your partner, you grab a bag of chips and start chowing down, only to realize the bag is gone before you know it, it could be a sign that stress eating is taking a toll.
- You Eat Even When You’re Not Hungry. Another sign that emotional eating could be problematic is if you often eat when you’re not hungry or continue eating when you’re already full.
- Emotional Eating Is Your Go-To Way of Coping. Occasionally using food to help cope with a tough situation is normal, says Laing and other experts interviewed for this article.
- Overview
- What causes someone to eat because of their emotions?
- Emotional hunger vs. physical hunger
- How to stop emotional eating
- When to seek help
Do you race to the pantry when you feel down or otherwise upset? You’re not alone. It’s common for people to turn to food for comfort as a way to cope with big, difficult feelings.
When you eat in response to emotions, it’s called emotional eating. Everyone does it sometimes.
Our bodies need food to survive. It makes sense that eating lights up the reward system in the brain and makes you feel better.
When emotional eating happens often, and you don’t have other ways to cope, it can be a problem.
Although it may feel like a way to cope in those moments, eating doesn’t address the true issue. If you’re feeling stressed, anxious, bored, lonely, sad, or tired, food won’t fix those feelings.
For some people, this cycle of turning to food to cope creates guilt and shame — more tough feelings to navigate.
Almost anything can trigger a desire to eat. Common external reasons for emotional eating may include:
•work stress
•financial worries
•health issues
•relationship struggles
People who follow restrictive diets or have a history of dieting are more likely to emotionally eat.
Humans must eat to live. It’s natural to need food and to desire certain tastes or textures.
You may wonder how to tell the difference between emotional and physical hunger cues. It can be tricky. Sometimes, it’s a combination of both.
If you haven’t eaten for several hours, or generally don’t eat enough in a day, you are more likely to experience emotional eating.
Here are some clues to help you tell the difference.
Start an emotion diary
The more you understand your habits, the better. Eating in response to emotion can happen automatically. The more you understand how you feel when you do certain things, the better your chance at changing things. Try keeping a record of those times when you eat but are not physically hungry. Make a note of: •what was happening •how you were feeling •any emotions you noticed when you got the urge to eat You may also want to include a place to write what you did. Did you eat right away? Did you wait a few minutes? Did you do something to distract yourself? Try not to judge yourself on your findings. Try to be genuinely curious about what is happening when you eat in response to emotions. This takes a lot of practice. Be kind to yourself as you start to explore. It doesn’t have to be perfect.
Find other ways to cope
Once you have more information about the emotions, situations, or thoughts that can trigger eating, you can start to make changes. If you notice that you always eat when you feel stressed, it’s the stress that needs attention. Think about some things you can do to better relieve your stress. If you notice you eat when you’re bored, consider ways to manage your boredom. What else could you do to fill your time? It takes time and practice to shift your mindset from reaching for food to engaging in other activities. Experiment with different things to find what works for you.
Move your body
Moving your body can be a powerful way to manage stress and anxiety. Activity helps to reduce levels of stress hormones in your body. It also releases endorphins to give your mood a boost. An exercise routine can help manage underlying emotional triggers for eating. It doesn’t have to be intense. If you’re not currently active, consider doing a five-minute walk or some gentle stretching. Notice how this makes you feel. There seems to be an extra benefit to mindfulness movements like yoga. People who routinely practice yoga report overall lower levels of stress and anxiety.
Change is hard work, but you deserve to feel better. Making changes to your emotional eating can be an opportunity to get more in touch with yourself and your feelings.
Emotional eating can be part of disordered eating. Disordered eating behaviors can lead to developing an eating disorder. You don’t need to have a diagnosed eating disorder to seek help.
If you are feeling uncomfortable with your eating, reach out for support. It’s brave to ask for help if you are struggling.
You can talk with your healthcare professional about your concerns. You can also connect with a mental health professional or a dietitian to help you address both the physical and mental sides of emotional eating.
Aug 26, 2024 · The potential risks of emotional eating. While emotional eating can sometimes lead to binge eating (more on that below) and distressing feelings like guilt or remorse, many eating disorder experts say that, in the absence of other symptoms, emotional eating itself isn’t risky or disordered.
Nov 12, 2021 · What are the signs of emotional eating? There are several signs that you might be someone prone to emotional eating. Sudden, urgent cravings. Physical hunger develops slowly over time.
Oct 30, 2023 · Emotional eating is the tendency of its sufferers to respond to stressful, difficult feelings by eating, even when not experiencing physical hunger. Emotional eating or emotional hunger is often a craving for high-calorie or high-carbohydrate foods that have minimal nutritional value.
- Roxanne Dryden-Edwards, MD
Oct 19, 2023 · specific food cravings. unintentional weight gain. If you find yourself eating impulsively when you’re upset, you’re not alone. A survey of 5,863 US adults suggests that about 1 in 5 people...
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Jun 5, 2024 · Key points. Understanding the psychological roots of emotional eating can be crucial in addressing it effectively. lt is vital to distinguish between physical hunger and emotional hunger....
