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Emotional Overeating

Feeding Your Feelings

When you are happy, your food of choice could be steak or pizza.  When you're sad, it could be ice cream or cookies.  And when you are bored, it could be potato chips.  Food does more than fill our stomachs--it also satisfies feelings, and when you quench those feelings with comfort food when your stomach isn't growling--that's emotional eating.

How to tell the difference - Am I Eating Emotionally?

1. Emotional hunger comes on suddenly; physical hunger occurs gradually.

2. When you are eating to fill a void that isn't related to an empty stomach, you crave a specific food, such as pizza or ice cream, and only that food will meet your need.  When you eat because you are actually hungry, you're open to options.

3. Emotional hunger feels like it needs to be satisfied instantly with the food you crave; physical hunger can wait. 

4. Even when you are full, if you're eating to satisfy an emotional need, you're more likely to keep eating.  When you're eating because you're hungry, you're more likely to stop when you're full.

5. Emotional eating can leave behind feelings of guilt; eating when you are physically hungry does not.

Comfort Foods

When emotional hunger rumbles, one of its distinguishing characteristics is that you're focused on a particular food, which is likely a comfort food.  Whether we know it or not, we may be eating comfort foods in order to obtain or maintain a feeling.  For many people, ice cream is first on the comfort food list.  Beyond that, women usually find comfort in eating chocolate and cookies, and men usually find comfort in eating pizza, steak, and casserole.

However, what you reach for when eating to satisfy an emotion may depend on the emotion.  According to an article published in the July 2000 American Demographics, "The types of comfort foods a person is drawn toward varies depending on their mood.  People in happy moods tended to prefer...foods such as pizza or steak (32%).  Sad people reached for ice cream and cookies 39% of the time, and 36% of bored people opened up a bag of potato chips."

Overfeeding Emotions

We all eat for emotional reasons at one time or another.  However, problems may arise when eating becomes the only or main strategy a person uses to manage emotions, especially if those foods aren't exactly healthy.

If you eat when you are not hungry, chances are, your body does not need the calories.  If this is the case, the extra calories get stored as fat, which can lead to overweight and obesity putting one's health at risk.

Recognizing Emotional Eating

In order to overcome emotional eating, you must recognize it.  Keep a food record and take notice of any emotions you may feel at the time along with a ranking of your hunger from 1 to 5.  Check for patterns of heightened emotions, low hunger, and food intake.

The problem of emotional eating starts at a young age for many people.  Often times when a child is sad, we cheer them up with a sweet treat.  This behavior gets reinforced year after year until we are practicing the same behavior as adults.  We never learn how to deal with the sad feeling. Learning how to deal with feelings without food is a new skill many of us need to learn.

Managing Emotional Eating

Here are a few tips to help you deal with emotional eating:

• Recognize emotional eating and learn what triggers this behavior in you.

• Make a list of enjoyable activities to do when you get the urge to eat and you're not hungry; carry it with you.  When you feel overwhelmed, you can put off that desire by doing another enjoyable activity.

• Try taking a walk, calling a friend, playing cards, cleaning your room, doing laundry, something productive, or even taking a nap to take your mind off the craving.

• When you do get the urge to eat when you're not hungry, find a comfort food that's healthy instead of a high-calorie option.

• For some, leaving comfort foods behind when they're dieting can be emotionally difficult.  The true key is moderation, not elimination.  Try dividing comfort foods into smaller portions.  If you have a large bag of chips, divide it into smaller containers or baggies and the temptation to eat more than one serving can be avoided.

• When it comes to comfort foods that aren't always healthy, like fattening desserts, remember this: the first four bites of food are usually the most enjoyable and the pleasure of eating it decreases with each bite.

Lastly, remember that emotional eating is something most people do when they're bored, happy, or sad.  It might be a bag of chips or a steak, but whatever's the food choice, learning how to control it and using moderation are key.

Source: WebMD