What is Emotional Eating?

Are you concerned you might be an emotional eater? Take a look through these FAQs to help you understand more about emotional eating, the triggers, the signs and how I can help you.

Are You an Emotional Eater?

Emotional eaters use food to meet an unmet emotional need. so, if you turn to food for comfort or to feel happy, you are, essentially, using food to soothe difficult feelings. Sometimes emotional eating can happen on an unconscious level too. This means that you might not be aware of any difficult or distressing feelings but you realise that your eating habits are out of control.

What Are the Signs of Emotional Eating?

Some of the most common signs of emotional eating include:

Eating when you're stressed
Experiencing sudden cravings
Finding it hard to stop eating once you've started
Feeling out of control around food
Eating to feel happy
Eating beyond feelings of fullness

Whether it’s a learned behaviour, a habit, or a sugar addiction, food, being a naturally pleasurable thing, offers that much needed relief from difficult and uncomfortable feelings. It’s a cycle that you want to break but no matter how hard you try, the temptation to binge or comfort eat is just too overwhelming.

What Causes Emotional Eating?

Feelings of stress
Needing to feel connected
Feeling out of control at work, home or even financially
Trauma
Unregulated emotions
Sugar Addiction

Emotional eating is an attempt to use food to feel better. It is often rooted in childhood but essentially, it’s a learned association that links food with feelings of relief or comfort.

Ultimately, it’s stress, whether sudden or long-term stress, that causes us to seek solace in food. Although food is essential for our survival, it is also immensely pleasurable so it’s not surprising that we turn to food when faced with difficult circumstances and life events.

Is Emotional Eating an Addiction?

Emotional eating isn’t necessarily an addiction but rather it’s a learned response (often from childhood) that has become a habit. So whenever feelings of comfort are sought, food is automatically the go-to thing.

It is, however, possible to be addicted to sugar and this can also be a cause of emotional eating. Sugar releases dopamine (a feel-good chemical) into our bodies and affects our internal “reward system” which gives us intense highs. The more we eat sugar, the more our tolerance to it builds. As our tolerance levels increase, the more our need for sugar becomes hardwired into our brains and we experience powerful cravings.

Emotional Eating vs Eating Disorder

Emotional eating isn’t considered an eating disorder, rather it’s an unhealthy relationship with food. It can, however, lead to an eating disorder if left unmanaged.

Unhealthy thoughts around eating and food include:

Labelling foods as "good" or "bad"
A restrictive or rigid mind-set around food
Eating to meet an emotional need
Sudden cravings
Obsessive thoughts about food
Feelings of guilt or shame after eating "bad" foods

Your Weight in Mind: Stop Emotional Eating in 4 Easy Steps

How I can help you overcome emotional eating successfully without restrictive dieting

Setting You Up for Success

The first step is learning to manage those overwhelming emotions effectively with my tried and tested relaxation technique so you can remain calm and collected no matter what.

Cutting the Cravings for Good

Using the latest powerful habit breaking psychology, you’ll start to unhook the desire to eat those high sugar/high fat foods and align your mind to healthier eating choices.

The End of Emotional Eating

Bring resolution to the origins of your emotional eating habit with my powerful re-encoding technique and override your unwanted eating habits with healthier strategies.

Feel Good About Food

Tap into the incredible power of your mind and emblazon your healthy eating successes into your future so your new eating habits are set up and ready for you to journey right into.

Anna Ritchie