Emotional eating, also known as stress eating and emotional overeating, is defined as the "propensity to eat in response to positive and negative emotions". While the term often refers to eating as a means of coping with negative emotions, it also includes eating for positive emotions, such as eating foods when celebrating an event or eating to enhance an already good mood. In these situations, emotions are still driving the eating but not in a negative way.
Background
Emotional eating includes eating in response to any emotion, whether that be positive or negative. Most frequently, people refer to emotional eating as "eating to cope with negative emotions." In these situations, emotional eating can be considered a form of
disordered eating
Disordered eating describes a variety of abnormal eating behaviors that, by themselves, do not warrant diagnosis of an eating disorder.
Disordered eating includes behaviors that are common features of eating disorders, such as:
* Chronic restra ...
, which is defined as "an increase in food intake in response to negative emotions" and can be considered a maladaptive strategy. More specifically, emotional eating in order to relieve negative emotions would qualify as a form of emotion-focused coping, which attempts to minimize, regulate, and prevent emotional
distress.
One study found that emotional eating sometimes does not reduce emotional distress, but instead it enhances emotional distress by sparking feelings of intense guilt after an emotional eating session. Those who eat as a coping strategy are at an especially high risk of developing binge-eating disorder, and those with eating disorders are at a higher risk to engage in emotional eating as a means to cope. In a clinical setting, emotional eating can be assessed by the Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire, which contains a scale for restrained, emotional, and external eating. Other questionnaires, such as the Palatable Eating Motives Scale, can determine reasons why a person eats tasty foods when they are not hungry; sub-scales include eating for reward enhancement, coping, social, and conformity.
Characteristics
Emotional eating usually occurs when one is attempting to satisfy his or her hedonic drive, or the drive to eat palatable food to obtain pleasure in the absence of an energy deficit but can also occur when one is seeking food as a reward, eating for social reasons (such as eating at a party), or eating to conform (which involves eating because friends or family wants the individual to). When one is engaging in emotional eating, they are usually seeking out palatable foods (such as sweets) rather than just food in general. In some cases, emotional eating can lead to something called "mindless eating" during which the individual is eating without being mindful of what or how much they are consuming; this can occur during both positive and negative settings.
Emotional hunger does not originate from the stomach, such as with a rumbling or growling stomach, but tends to start when a person thinks about a craving or wants something specific to eat. Emotional responses are also different. Giving in to a craving or eating because of stress can cause feelings of regret, shame, or guilt, and these responses tend to be associated with emotional hunger. On the other hand, satisfying a physical hunger is giving the body the nutrients or calories it needs to function and is not associated with negative feelings.
Major theories behind eating to cope
Current research suggests that certain individual factors may increase one's likelihood of using emotional eating as a coping strategy. The inadequate
affect regulation Affect regulation and "affect regulation theory" are important concepts in psychiatry and psychology and in close relation with emotion regulation. However, the latter is a reflection of an individual's mood status rather than their affect. Affect ...
theory posits that individuals engage in emotional eating because they believe overeating alleviates negative feelings.
Escape theory builds upon inadequate affect regulation theory by suggesting that people not only overeat to cope with negative emotions, but they find that overeating diverts their attention away from a stimulus that is threatening self-esteem to focus on a pleasurable stimulus like food. Restraint theory suggests that overeating as a result of negative emotions occurs among individuals who already restrain their eating. While these individuals typically limit what they eat, when they are faced with negative emotions they cope by engaging in emotional eating.
Restraint theory supports the idea that individuals with other eating disorders are more likely to engage in emotional eating. Together these three theories suggest that an individual's aversion to negative emotions, particularly negative feelings that arise in response to a threat to the
ego or intense
self-awareness
In philosophy of self, self-awareness is the experience of one's own personality or individuality. It is not to be confused with consciousness in the sense of qualia. While consciousness is being aware of one's environment and body and lifesty ...
, increase the propensity for the individual to utilize emotional eating as a means of coping with this aversion.
The biological stress response may also contribute to the development of emotional eating tendencies. In a crisis,
corticotropin-releasing hormone
Corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) (also known as corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) or corticoliberin; corticotropin may also be spelled corticotrophin) is a peptide hormone involved in stress (biology), stress responses. It is a releasing ...
(CRH) is secreted by the
hypothalamus
The hypothalamus () is a part of the brain that contains a number of small nuclei with a variety of functions. One of the most important functions is to link the nervous system to the endocrine system via the pituitary gland. The hypothalamu ...
, suppressing appetite and triggering the release of
glucocorticoid
Glucocorticoids (or, less commonly, glucocorticosteroids) are a class of corticosteroids, which are a class of steroid hormones. Glucocorticoids are corticosteroids that bind to the glucocorticoid receptor that is present in almost every vertebr ...
s from the
adrenal gland
The adrenal glands (also known as suprarenal glands) are endocrine glands that produce a variety of hormones including adrenaline and the steroids aldosterone and cortisol. They are found above the kidneys. Each gland has an outer cortex which ...
.
These steroid hormones increase appetite and, unlike CRH, remain in the bloodstream for a prolonged period of time, often resulting in
hyperphagia
Polyphagia or hyperphagia is an abnormally strong, incessant sensation of hunger or desire to eat often leading to overeating. In contrast to an increase in appetite following exercise, polyphagia does not subside after eating and often leads to ...
. Those who experience this biologically instigated increase in appetite during times of stress are therefore primed to rely on emotional eating as a coping mechanism.
Contributing factors
Negative affect
Overall, high levels of the negative affect trait are related to emotional eating.
Negative affectivity
Negative affectivity (NA), or negative affect, is a personality variable that involves the experience of negative emotions and poor self-concept. Negative affectivity subsumes a variety of negative emotions, including anger, contempt, disgust, gui ...
is a personality trait involving negative emotions and poor self-concept. Negative emotions experienced within negative affect include anger, guilt, and nervousness. It has been found that certain negative affect regulation scales predicted emotional eating.
An inability to articulate and identify one's emotions made the individual feel inadequate at regulating negative affect and thus more likely to engage in emotional eating as a means for coping with those negative emotions.
Further scientific studies regarding the relationship between negative affect and eating find that, after experiencing a stressful event, food consumption is associated with reduced feelings of negative affect (i.e. feeling less bad) for those enduring high levels of chronic stress. This relationship between eating and feeling better suggests a self-reinforcing cyclical pattern between high levels of chronic stress and consumption of highly palatable foods as a coping mechanism.
Contrarily, a study conducted by Spoor et al.
found that negative affect is not significantly related to emotional eating, but the two are indirectly associated through
emotion-focused coping and
avoidance-distraction behaviors. While the scientific results differed somewhat, they both suggest that negative affect does play a role in emotional eating but it may be accounted for by other variables.
Childhood development
For some people, emotional eating is a learned behavior. During childhood, their parents give them treats to help them deal with a tough day or situation, or as a reward for something good. Over time, the child who reaches for a cookie after getting a bad grade on a test may become an adult who grabs a box of cookies after a rough day at work. In an example such as this, the roots of emotional eating are deep, which can make breaking the habit extremely challenging.
In some cases, individuals may eat in order to conform; for example, individuals may be told "you have to finish your plate" and the individual may eat past the point in which they feel satisfied.
Related disorders
Emotional eating as a means to cope may be a precursor to developing eating disorders such as
binge eating
Binge eating is a pattern of disordered eating which consists of episodes of uncontrollable eating. It is a common symptom of eating disorders such as binge eating disorder and bulimia nervosa. During such binges, a person rapidly consumes an exc ...
or
bulimia nervosa
Bulimia nervosa, also known as simply bulimia, is an eating disorder characterized by binge eating followed by purging or fasting, and excessive concern with body shape and weight. The aim of this activity is to expel the body of calories eate ...
. The relationship between emotional eating and other disorders is largely due to the fact that emotional eating and these disorders share key characteristics. More specifically, they are both related to emotion focused coping, maladaptive coping strategies, and a strong aversion to negative feelings and stimuli. It is important to note that the causal direction has not been definitively established, meaning that while emotional eating is considered a precursor to these eating disorders, it also may be the consequence of these disorders. The latter hypothesis that emotional eating happens in response to another eating disorder is supported by research that has shown emotional eating to be more common among individuals already suffering from bulimia nervosa.
Biological and environmental factors
![NYPizzaPie](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/64/NYPizzaPie.jpg)
Stress affects food preferences. Numerous studies — granted, many of them in animals — have shown that physical or emotional distress increases the intake of food high in fat, sugar, or both, even in the absence of caloric deficits. Once ingested, fat- and sugar-filled foods seem to have a feedback effect that damps stress-related responses and emotions, as these foods trigger dopamine and opioid releases, which protect against the negative consequences of stress.
These foods really are "comfort" foods in that they seem to counteract stress, but rat studies demonstrate that intermittent access to and consumption of these highly palatable foods creates symptoms that resemble opioid withdrawal, suggesting that high-fat and high-sugar foods can become neurologically addictive.
A few examples from the American diet would include: hamburgers, pizza, French fries, sausages and savory pasties. The most common food preferences are in decreasing order from: sweet energy-dense food, non-sweet energy-dense food then, fruits and vegetables. This may contribute to people's stress-induced craving for those foods.
The stress response is a highly-individualized reaction and personal differences in physiological reactivity may also contribute to the development of emotional eating habits. Women are more likely than men to resort to eating as a coping mechanism for stress, as are obese individuals and those with histories of dietary restraint. In one study, women were exposed to an hour-long social stressor task or a neutral control condition. The women were exposed to each condition on different days. After the tasks, the women were invited to a buffet with both healthy and unhealthy snacks. Those who had high chronic stress levels and a low cortisol reactivity to the acute stress task consumed significantly more calories from chocolate cake than women with low chronic stress levels after both control and stress conditions. High cortisol levels, in combination with high insulin levels, may be responsible for stress-induced eating, as research shows high cortisol reactivity is associated with hyperphagia, an abnormally increased appetite for food, during stress. Furthermore, since glucocorticoids trigger hunger and specifically increase one's appetite for high-fat and high-sugar foods, those whose adrenal glands naturally secrete larger quantities of glucocorticoids in response to a stressor are more inclined toward hyperphagia.
Additionally, those whose bodies require more time to clear the bloodstream of excess glucocorticoids are similarly predisposed.
These biological factors can interact with environmental elements to further trigger hyperphagia. Frequent intermittent stressors trigger repeated, sporadic releases of glucocorticoids in intervals too short to allow for a complete return to baseline levels, leading to sustained and elevated levels of appetite. Therefore, those whose lifestyles or careers entail frequent intermittent stressors over prolonged periods of time thus have greater biological incentive to develop patterns of emotional eating, which puts them at risk for long-term adverse health consequences such as weight gain or cardiovascular disease.
Macht (2008) described a five-way model to explain the reasoning behind stressful eating: (1) emotional control of food choice, (2) emotional suppression of food intake, (3) impairment of cognitive eating controls, (4) eating to regulate emotions, and (5) emotion-congruent modulation of eating. These break down into subgroups of: Coping, reward enhancement, social and conformity motive. Thus, providing an individual with are stronger understanding of personal emotional eating.
Positive affect
Geliebter and Aversa (2003) conducted a study comparing individuals of three weight groups: underweight, normal weight and overweight. Both positive and negative emotions were evaluated. When individuals were experiencing positive emotional states or situations, the underweight group reporting eating more than the other two groups. As an explanation, the typical nature of underweight individuals is to eat less and during times of stress to eat even less. However, when positive emotional states or situations arise, individuals are more likely to indulge themselves with food.
Impact
Emotional eating may qualify as avoidant coping and/or emotion-focused coping. As coping methods that fall under these broad categories focus on temporary reprieve rather than practical resolution of stressors, they can initiate a vicious cycle of maladaptive behavior reinforced by fleeting relief from stress. Additionally, in the presence of high insulin levels characteristic of the recovery phase of the stress-response, glucocorticoids trigger the creation of an enzyme that stores away the nutrients circulating in the bloodstream after an episode of emotional eating as visceral fat, or fat located in the abdominal area.
Therefore, those who struggle with emotional eating are at greater risk for abdominal obesity, which is in turn linked to a greater risk for metabolic and cardiovascular disease.
Treatment
There are numerous ways in which individuals can reduce emotional distress without engaging in emotional eating as a means to cope. The most salient choice is to minimize maladaptive coping strategies and to maximize adaptive strategies. A study conducted by Corstorphine et al. in 2007 investigated the relationship between
distress tolerance Distress tolerance is an emerging construct in psychology that has been conceptualized in several different ways. Broadly, however, it refers to an individual's "perceived capacity to withstand negative emotional and/or other aversive states (e.g. p ...
and disordered eating.
These researchers specifically focused on how different coping strategies impact distress tolerance and disordered eating. They found that individuals who engage in disordered eating often employ emotional avoidance strategies. If an individual is faced with strong negative emotions, they may choose to avoid the situation by distracting themselves through overeating. Discouraging emotional avoidance is thus an important facet to emotional eating treatment. The most obvious way to limit emotional avoidance is to confront the issue through techniques like problem solving. Corstorphine et al. showed that individuals who engaged in problem solving strategies enhance one's ability to tolerate emotional distress.
Since emotional distress is correlated to emotional eating, the ability to better manage one's negative affect should allow an individual to cope with a situation without resorting to overeating.
One way to combat emotional eating is to employ mindfulness techniques. For example, approaching cravings with a nonjudgmental inquisitiveness can help differentiate between hunger and emotionally-driven cravings. An individual may ask his or herself if the craving developed rapidly, as emotional eating tends to be triggered spontaneously. An individual may also take the time to note his or her bodily sensations, such as hunger pangs, and coinciding emotions, like guilt or shame, in order to make conscious decisions to avoid emotional eating.
Emotional eating can also be improved by evaluating physical facets like hormone balance. Female hormones, in particular, can alter cravings and even self-perception of one's body. Additionally, emotional eating can be exacerbated by social pressure to be thin. The focus on thinness and dieting in our culture can make young girls, especially, vulnerable to falling into food restriction and subsequent emotional eating behavior.
Emotional eating disorder predisposes individuals to more serious eating disorders and physiological complications. Therefore, combatting disordered eating before such progression takes place has become the focus of many
clinical psychologist
Clinical psychology is an integration of social science, theory, and clinical knowledge for the purpose of understanding, preventing, and relieving psychologically based distress or dysfunction and to promote subjective well-being and persona ...
s.
Stress fasting
In a lesser percentage of individuals, emotional eating may conversely consist of reduced food intake, or
stress fasting.
This is believed to result from the
fight-or-flight response
The fight-or-flight or the fight-flight-or-freeze response (also called hyperarousal or the acute stress response) is a physiological reaction that occurs in response to a perceived harmful event, attack, or threat to survival. It was first des ...
.
In some individuals, depression and other psychological disorders can also lead to
emotional fasting or starvation.
See also
*
Comfort food
Comfort food is food that provides a nostalgic or sentimental value to someone, and may be characterized by its high caloric nature, high carbohydrate level, or simple preparation. The nostalgia may be specific to an individual, or it may app ...
*
Food addiction
A food or eating addiction is any behavioral addiction that is primarily characterized by the compulsive consumption of palatable (e.g., high fat and high sugar) food items which markedly activate the reward system in humans and other animal ...
*
Hedonic hunger
Hedonic hunger or hedonic hyperphagia is "the drive to eat to obtain pleasure in the absence of an energy deficit." Particular foods may have a high "hedonic rating" or individuals may have increased susceptibility to environmental food cues. Weigh ...
*
Overeating
Overeating occurs when an individual consumes more calories in relation to the energy that is expended via physical activity or expelled via excretion, leading to weight gain and often obesity. Overeating is the defining characteristic of binge e ...
*
Social determinants of health
The social determinants of health (SDOH) are the economic and social conditions that influence individual and group differences in health status. They are the health promoting factors found in one's living and working conditions (such as the d ...
References
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Eating behaviors
Emotional issues
Habit and impulse disorders
Physiology