Emotional Eating―Defined

By now, you may be familiar with the term “emotional eating.” Essentially, this is when we turn to food for comfort—consciously or unconsciously—when faced with challenging emotions, such as stress, anger, fear, boredom, sadness or loneliness.

In these cases, we are triggered to “self-soothe” with food, often with items high in sugar, salt and fat. The problem is, we can’t eat our problems away. They remain at the bottom of that ice cream bowl, waiting to be addressed.

Using food to cope even when we are not physically hungry brings another glaring problem—weight gain—adding insult to injury. These added fat pounds may compound the problems that caused the emotional eating in the first place, such as sadness, anxiety, fear, insecurity, etc.

This is the very definition of a vicious cycle. And yet, as always, the way out is the way through. You can heal this damaging habit and reclaim your natural senses of hunger and satiety. Check out How to Break the Cycle of Emotional Eating.