Ilana Katz MS, RD, CSSD
Emotional (or stress) eating has always been a hot topic, mainly because one can find themselves turning to the pantry or fridge for a source of comfort, even though the appetite stimulant hormones are not active.
How it can be controlled, comes with an understanding of what it is and why it happens and then developing an appropriate strategy on how it can be controlled.
Recognizing signs of emotional eating may seem obvious, like feelings of stress, anger, or sadness drives you to eat. Underlying root causes can result from anything related to work or financial stress, relationship challenges, health issues and even simply boredom.
Submitting to an urge to eat more than required has some obvious consequences, such as potential weight gain and secondary health conditions thereof (metabolic syndrome) but also the more suble psychological consequences can be just as harmful, such as of endless feelings of guilt, anxiety and sadness.
Create Awareness
More often than not, emotional or stress eating has nothing to do with food itself. We choose food because it has many connections to filling an emotional void. Negative emotions tend to lead to feelings of emptiness. Food can create a false feeling of fullness or temporary wholeness.
Other identifiers may include behaviors such as avoiding social support, avoiding activities that may otherwise relieve stress (such as physical activity or running errands,) and engaging in negative self-talk that can create a vicious cycle of eating, feelings of guilt/anxiety, resulting in more emotional eating.
Stress, in all its forms, generates the hormone cortisol, a physiologic response to stress but also a further enabler of “cravings.”
Physical hunger versus emotional eating
Humans require food to survive, so it becomes quite a challenge to distinguish hormone reactions to true hunger from the hormone reactions triggered by emotional cues. Knowing some physical differences between the two may be extremely helpful: (table extracted from Mayo Clinic website that best describes recognizable symptoms).
Recommendations for Control
| Physical hunger | Emotional hunger |
| It develops slowly over time. | It comes about suddenly or abruptly. |
| You desire a variety of food groups. | You crave only certain foods. |
| You feel the sensation of fullness and take it as a cue to stop eating. | You may binge on food and not feel a sensation of fullness. |
| You have no negative feelings about eating. | You feel guilt or shame about eating. |
Since emotional/stress eating it not usually about food, control mechanisms will engage in stress management and mood enhancing practices.
Self Kindness
Awareness of emotional eating evading your self-control can be guilt inducing, followed by sadness and self-anger. Instead of letting these emotions fester, the first thing to do is give yourself a break. Self-compassion is the first step toward learning to comfort yourself in other ways. To break the cycle of emotions turn to food which ultimately turns to more negativity, use mantras, such as : “I am aware I am stress eating, I am worth more”. Side note: I have noticed many social media requests from others for support, and many helpful mantras have emerged. Maybe request from your friends, motivational sayings that have helped them.
It is most important to note the feelings you experience right before eating, Awareness is the first step to coping.
Fuel with Nutrient Density
Although emotional eating is not always about food, making sure you get enough nutrients to fuel your body is key. Capitalize on well-balanced daily meal planning. If you can eliminate real physiologic cravings by eating well throughout the day, it may be easier to identify when you are eating out of stress or boredom.
Create a to-do list for Coping
Note why you may be feeling stressed and next to each itemized feeling, note a behavior. not related to food, that makes you happy (such as relax in a hot bath filled with bubbles, read a chapter of a novel you may be enjoying, meditate).
If you can change the situation, more power to you, you have got this. If it feels like the problem is not within your control remember that you can always manage the way you react to it. If you can notice your stress in the moment, you can choose how you respond, rather than reacting “un”conciously.
Physiologic
The awareness strategies above may enable you to delay succumbing to the urge to eat and actually eating. Use this delay to note your stress, your emotions and your feelings of why you want to eat. We tend to push the emotions aside, so the pleasure of eating will create temporary comfort. Keep in mind, this is a subconscious decision, and you have the ability to deal with the emotions at hand rather than generate a cycle of more negativity by pushing them aside. Even if dealing with emotions is not always successful, at least the delay allows time for the impulse of eating to pass.
Get Physical
Make the temptation to eat a stimulus response mechanism for the response to be more action. In other words, once an awareness of emotional loss of control takes over, revert to moving around, go for a run, or a walk, pull out a yoga DVD, or even a quick burst of activity. Even a few minutes of movement can generate the endorphins for stress relief, add a level of refreshment and replace the urge to eat with something else.
If you are unable to move around, simple deep breathing is therapeutic meditation that you can do almost anywhere. Sit quietly and focus on your flow of breath, from nose to lungs and vice versa. Many studies support mindfulness meditation as a treatment to binge eating and/or emotional eating.
Be Realistic
Food plays a role in almost every human emotion, whether it is something we celebrate (weddings, promotions, birthdays, etc) or whether it is something sad (funerals, etc), it is natural to share these times with friends and family, and this is healthy. It only becomes a problem when it is used frequently without an awareness, and without a motivation to heal. There may come a time to consider counseling, even if it is only a few sessions. Getting to the root of the problem is the first step to awareness.
Conclusion
Food is a sought-after solution to initially ease stress and emotion, but the consequences can be extremely negative, such as weight gain, further stress, and secondary health issues thereof. Addressing the real feelings behind the need to eat is important in the long term. Work to find alternative ways to deal with stress, like exercise, support, and practice mindful eating behaviors.
