What Is Emotional Eating?
Emotional eating is when people use food as a way to deal with feelings instead of satisfying hunger. Have you ever finished a whole bag of chips out of boredom or downed cookie after cookie while preparing for a big test? But when done a lot — especially without realizing it — emotional eating can affect weight, health, and overallwell-being.
Not many of us make the connection between eating and ourfeelings.
One of the biggest myths about emotional eating is that it's caused by negative feelings. Yes, peopleoften turn to food when they're stressed out, lonely, sad, anxious, or bored. But emotionaleating can be linked to positive feelings too, like the romance of sharingdessert on Valentine's Day or the celebration of a holiday feast. Sometimesemotional eating is tied to major life events, like a death or a divorce.
Emotional eating patterns can be learned: A child who is givencandy after a big achievement may grow up using candy as a reward for a jobwell done. It's not easy to “unlearn” patterns ofemotional eating. But it ispossible. And it startswith an awareness of what's going on.
We're all emotional eaters to a degree．But for somepeople emotional eating can be a real problem, causing serious weight gain orother problems．The troublewith emotional eating is that once the pleasure of eating is gone, the feelingsthat cause it remain.That's why it helps to know the differencebetween physical hunger and emotional hunger.
Next time you reach for a snack, wait and think about which typeof hunger is driving it.
A. Believe it ornot, we've all been there.
B. If a cryingboy gets some cookies, he may link cookies with comfort.
C. One studyfound that people who eat food like pizza become happy afterwards.
D. And you oftenmay feel worse about eating the amount or type of food you like.
E. Understandingwhat drives emotional eating can help people take steps to change it.
F. Boys seem toprefer hot, homemade comfort meals, while girls go for chocolate and ice cream.
G. More often,though, it's the countless little daily stresses that cause someone to seekcomfort in food.
