Emotional eating is a subject that is written about over and over. Emotional eating is considered the act of eating as a result of feelings. For example in our society we use things to celebrate. Many people when overwhelmed with happiness eat to celebrate it. Many people also use food to numb themselves from painful feelings and to comfort themselves. This is called emotional eating.
However there are also people who believe emotional eating doesn’t exist. What they see as emotional eating isn’t the fact that one overeats because they are upset, more so that they are eating because their body is craving nutrients. Feeling upset and off balance is a signal to the body that more food is required. This rings true when we remember times we had been hungry and haven’t eaten in several hours or nearly the entire day. We can be snappy or sensitive and on edge with our emotions. Once we feed our hunger we feel better and more balanced. In this sense emotional eating makes sense.
In terms of the typical definition of emotional eating, one will “overeat” as a result of feelings. Is this true? Well emotional eaters tend to be people who do not eat very well. Many emotional eaters don’t eat breakfast or have very light food in the beginning of the day. As a result emotional binges result near the end of the day as the stress of their job or someone upsetting them takes its toll. When we eat enough our ability to manage stress is much better and we are less likely to turn to food to deal with it. We aren’t really turning to the food because of the emotion more because the emotion has reminded us that we are off balance and need to eat more.
In this way it can be very clear that emotional eating can be rectified by simply eating enough and eating plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables. However in some cases it isn’t as simple as this and the notion of emotional eating does seem to exist. For example smells and different meals can remind us of our childhood and we often eat these foods in order to reminisce. Some foods also remind us of people – maybe our mother used to make us a beautiful lasagne and we want to reminisce as that person has died. This type of emotional eating is much harder to resist and overcome. It is only through understanding that not eating the food does not taint or belittle your memories that you can get past it.
