How emotions can lead to stress eating, snacking and what to do about it

Have you ever noticed changes in your eating habits when you are sad, bored or anxious?

Many people report eating either more, or less, as a way of helping them to cope when they experience difficult emotions.

Although this is a very normal response, it can take the pleasure out of eating, and can become distressing and bring about other feelings of shame and self-criticism.

Adding to the complexity of it all, we live in a world where diet culture is unavoidable, and our relationship to eating, food and body image can become complicated and confusing.

Emotional eating is common

“Emotional eating” refers to the eating behaviours (typically eating more) that occur in response to difficult emotions.

Research shows around 20% of people regularly engage in emotional eating, with a higher prevalence among adolescents and women. In a study of more than 1,500 adolescents, 34% engaged in emotional eating while sad and 40% did so while anxious.

Foods consumed are often fast-foods and other energy-dense, nutrient-poor convenience foods.

Stress, strong emotions, depression

For some people, emotional eating was simply a habit formed earlier in life that has persisted over time.

But other factors might also contribute to the likelihood of emotional eating. The physiological effects of stress and strong emotions, for example, can influence hormones such as cortisol, insulin and glucose, which can also increase appetite.

Increased impulsivity (behaving before...

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