What is emotional eating and why does it happen?

What is emotional eating and why does it happen?

Emotional eating happens when we eat in response to our emotions, rather than in response to hunger. We may turn to food to comfort ourselves when we’re feeling stressed, sad, or anxious, or to celebrate when we’re happy.

While emotional eating can happen in response to any emotion, it’s most commonly triggered by negative emotions like stress, anxiety, or depression. That’s because we often use food as a way to cope with these feelings.

Food can be a temporary distraction from the problems in our lives, and it can provide a sense of comfort and relief. However, emotional eating can also lead to long-term consequences like weight gain, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease.

The first step to managing emotional eating is to become aware of your triggers. What emotions are you most likely to eat in response to? Once you identify your triggers, you can start to find other ways to cope with them.

If you’re struggling with emotional eating, reach out to a mental health professional for help..Extra resources

How is emotional eating disorder diagnosed?

A person with emotional eating disorder (EED) feels that they have to eat certain foods or else they will feel bad. They may feel like they need to eat to deal with their emotions or to cope with stress.

EED is diagnosed when a person has all of the following:

1. recurrent episodes of binge eating. This means eating a large amount of food in a short period of time, even when they’re not hungry.

2. a feeling of loss of control during the episodes of binge eating.

3. distress about their binge eating. This may be feeling guilty, ashamed, or disgusted about their eating.

4. the binge eating happens, on average, at least once a week for 3 months.

5. the binge eating is not caused by another medical condition, such as an eating disorder (like bulimia or anorexia), or by taking certain medications.

6. the binge eating is not better explained by another mental disorder, such as depression.

If a person has all of these symptoms, they will likely be diagnosed with EED. However, the diagnosis may be tricky because some of the symptoms can also occur in other disorders, such as binge eating disorder (BED).

To make sure the diagnosis is accurate, the person will likely be evaluated by a mental health professional, such as a psychiatrist, psychologist, or clinical social worker. They will ask questions about the person’s eating habits and whether they feel like they can control their eating. They will also ask about the person’s emotions, stress levels, and any other areas of their life that may be affecting their eating.

The mental health professional will use all of this information to diagnose the person with EED or another disorder.

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