Food and eating are the center of many life events. Regardless of your culture, many traditions, celebrations and holidays are associated with specific foods. For example, cake is associated with birthdays, while turkey is associated with Thanksgiving and tamales are more popular for Hispanics during the holiday season.
Food is also a way of connecting with others and showing someone you care for them, for example, bringing food to a family who is grieving the loss of a loved one.
It is natural to have an emotional connection to food. However, it can become unhealthy when we use food as a way of coping with our emotions — particularly negative emotions such as stress, loneliness, boredom or sadness.
What is Emotional Eating
Emotional eating occurs when a person turns to food as a means of comfort to cope with difficult emotions. It often happens outside of physical hunger.
Physical hunger develops over time. For example, after several hours without eating, your body will send hunger cues, such as a growling stomach, hunger pangs, low energy levels, shakiness or irritability, often referred to as "being hangry." When physical hunger is present, plan to eat a snack or meal to satisfy that hunger.
Emotional hunger, however, tends to happen suddenly, often triggered by a change in emotional state. People may experience an intense craving for specific foods, like sweets. You may have seen a movie scene when a person has experienced a breakup; they are often crying and eating a bowl of ice cream or other indulgent food. This is emotional eating.
Why We Turn to Food for Comfort
When we experience a negative emotion, our natural inclination is to find a way to comfort ourselves, a process also known as coping.
Foods, particularly sugary and high-fat foods, cause a chemical called dopamine to be produced in the brain. This is the happy, feel-good chemical.
When we experience chronic stress or negative emotions, we can sometimes unconsciously seek that hit of dopamine to help us feel better through food.
Signs You Might Be Emotional Eating
People who experience emotional eating may experience:
- Feeling the inability to control oneself around certain foods and how much they eat
- An urge to eat when they feel powerful emotions
- An urge to eat even when they are not physically hungry
- Eating something seems like the only solution to feel good
Steps to Stop Emotional Eating
When experiencing cravings outside of physical hunger, here are steps you can take to stop emotional eating:
Distract or Delay Yourself
A delay of just a few minutes is often enough for the intense craving for a particular food to pass. Drink some water while you're waiting, and see if that helps.
Distraction can take the form of any task, such as cleaning out a junk drawer that's out of control, sweeping the floor, working on a word puzzle or coloring a calm page from a coloring book. The goal is to keep your mind and hands busy with a task that is not food-related.
Be Mindful
Practicing mindfulness is a powerful way to stay in tune with what we are experiencing in our body. Get curious, and try not to be judgmental about any thoughts or emotions that you notice. Sit quietly, focus on your breath and simply observe what the body is communicating. This includes tuning in to any physical hunger cues to determine if the body needs nourishment.
For some people who have been on restrictive diets for much of their lives, it may take time to reconnect with the usual physical hunger cues because they have conditioned their minds to ignore them.
Identify Your Hunger Level
Rate your hunger/fullness level on a scale of 1 to 10. A rating of one indicates feeling like "starving, weakness" and a rating of 10 indicates an "over-stuffed, Thanksgiving, uncomfortable" feeling.
Practice identifying your hunger level throughout the day to help you manage it more effectively. Aim to start eating when you reach a 2-4 rating. And vice versa, determine your level of fullness during your meal. Stop eating when you have reached a fullness level of a 7-8 rating, to prevent overeating.
Keep a Journal
Keeping a mindful eating journal is another tool that can help identify any emotional eating habits you may have. Notate what food you ate, when you ate it and what feelings you are experiencing at the time.
For example, if you notice that every Saturday when you are bored at home, you tend to raid the pantry for snacks, this could be an indication that boredom triggers you to eat outside of physical hunger.
Healthy Ways to Cope with Emotions
Unintentional weight gain can be a result of emotional eating; this can lead a person to feelings of low self-esteem, guilt or shame, which further reinforce negative emotions and continue the cycle of emotional eating.
Here are two ways you can cope with emotions:
Exercise
Exercise is a great way to alleviate feelings of stress and anxiety. Exercise produces dopamine, which helps us feel emotionally better, and exercise is physically beneficial for maintaining a healthy weight and overall health. The recommendation for exercise is to get 150 minutes of moderate to intense exercise per week.
Talk to Someone
Reaching out to a friend or loved one to talk can offer comfort and emotional support when dealing with difficult emotions. After the conversation, you may discover that the thoughts of food have passed and you feel better.
Support groups, such as Overeaters Anonymous, are organizations that specifically helps people who struggle with emotional eating and other eating-related issues.
Talking with a mental health professional can help you identify the negative emotions you are experiencing and address the root cause of emotions. They can also help you identify healthy coping strategies to manage these emotions.
Nutrition Help at University Health
If you find yourself struggling with emotional eating, talk with one of our primary care providers. They can guide you to the right treatment plan for you. That may include referring you to one of our many specialty providers in behavioral health or connecting you with the experts at Texas Diabetes Institute.
Community Resources
Whether you receive care from us or not, we aim to connect our community to valuable resources related to healthy eating through our Institute for Public Health.
