Our culture focuses a great deal of advertising dollars on encouraging us to celebrate our joys, comfort our sorrows and soothe our stressors with the perfect food items. While indulging in our favorite treat or comfort food can bring temporary comfort and relief from uncomfortable emotions, using food as our only method of self-soothing can leave us feeling guilty and depressed. In addition, the accompanying weight gain that sometimes can follow a “food binge” can bring on self-loathing and self-recrimination.
Examples of Emotional Eating
Here are some examples of what emotional eating might look like:
- Snacking when you do not feel physically hungry or when you are moderately full
- Experiencing an intense craving for a particular food
- Not feeling satiated after eating adequate amount of healthy food
- Anxiously gathering more food while your mouth is full
- Feeling emotionally relieved while eating
- Eating during or following a stressful experience
- Numbing feelings with food
- Eating alone to avoid others noticing
If any of these examples resonate, you may be eating for emotional reasons or an attempt to self-soothe or experience temporary relief from difficult feelings. The journey of healing from emotional eating consists of learning how to better understand emotions so that you will feel less averse to or overwhelmed by your feelings.
Creating Awareness
The first step in healing is creating awareness around your eating habits. It can be helpful to grab a notebook and call to mind a recent situation in which you overate.
Looking at:
- What was the situation (where were you, whom were you with, what was happening)?
- As best you can consider, what were you feeling?
- How did the emotions affect you eating (for example, did you eat more than you intended, or more quickly, or chose a food you may not typically eat)?
- Now recall the emotions you experienced after eating. What were they?
In a moment of emotional distress, it may be difficult to name the emotion you are feeling but with practice you will be more able to say for example. “Ah, there is loneliness and there is that familiar pull to eat.” When you mindfully start to notice the feelings that prompt eating, you bring your awareness, not your guilt to your habits. Practicing self-compassion and curiosity around your eating behaviors can help you develop flexibility around your food choices and help you develop a greater sense of control over your eating behaviors.
Kathryn Druzbicki, LMHCA
Therapist
Clarity Clinic
Taitz, Psy.D, J. L. (2012). End Emotional Eating. Oakland: New Harbinger Publications.
