Updated on 3/2/21

Everyone has their comfort object. For some it’s a childhood stuffed animal or blanket; for others it’s an essential oil diffuser or white-noise machine, a favorite book or meaningful piece of jewelry. But for many people, the thing that they turn to in times ofstress,anxiety, or sadness is food.

When we find ourselves emotionally eating, it’s a destructive catch-22: sometimes we may be overeating because we can’t find control in other areas of our lives, but when we overeat we feel out of controlbecauseof the eating. Let’s explore why we start, and where it comes from.

Emotional Eating Is Different From Binge Eating

First, let’s start with an important distinction that often results in confusion. Binge eating, or binge eating disorder, often gets conflated with emotional eating or other kinds of compulsive eating. Thecriteriafor binge eating includes eating until you areuncomfortably fulland also experiencea loss of controlaround your ability to eat (meaning you feel like you can’t stop yourself from doing it).

Why Is Food So Comforting?

This can be filling a void due to the loss of a job or a loved one, or trying to replace one kind of pain (for example, anxiety or depression, which iscorrelatedwith emotional eating) with a different kind of pain (fullness). Food can also have positive emotional associations with pleasant memories: maybe eating a candy bar reminds you of crisp, autumn nights trick-or-treating with your siblings. Maybe ice cream reminds you of the time your mom took care of you when you had your tonsils removed. Whatever memories food summons is what draws us to it, even when we know that it might not be the healthiest coping mechanism out there.

4 Ways to Avoid Emotional Eating

Many people who are drawn to eating for comfort may feel that they need to give their hands or mouth something to do if they want to refrain from turning to chips or popcorn or cookies. Fortunately, there are many ways we can occupy our minds — and hands and mouths — when the urge to eat compulsively strikes.

And if you’re ready to start exploring these emotions,get matched with an online therapisttoday.

Our goal at Talkspace is to provide the most up-to-date, valuable, and objective information on mental health-related topics in order to help readers make informed decisions.

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