What Is Emotional Eating? Why the Use of 'Emotional Eating' Needs to be Examined
By Katherine Metzelaar, MSN, RDN, CD
There are a lot of stories that are told in this culture about people’s “emotional eating problems.”
Those stories often communicate the message that if you could “just control your emotional eating” then everything else would fall into place and your relationship with food would naturally come together in a neatly organized way. Easy peasy. But is this actually true? Is the root of your and other’s challenged relationship with food simply about decreasing ‘emotional eating’? Let’s take a look.
Emotional eating is more complicated than it looks on the surface
Many things can contribute to someone having what they might describe as an “emotional eating experience” that are often negated when talking about emotional eating in this (diet) culture. As a Eating Disorder Registered Dietitian, I mostly see the term and use of ‘emotional eating’ described as if it’s happening in a vacuum, as if it’s not interconnected to other parts of a person’s life, experience, trauma, and dieting/eating disorder history.
This is an issue because it is impossible to separate your relationship to food, and thus your experiences with ‘emotional eating,’ from your lived life experience. ‘Emotional eating’ is not simply an individual's “inability” to control their emotional experience and therefore eats as a result, but rather a complex web of experiences that lead to the use of food to soothe, cope, manage, and survive. In addition to this, there are some other major issues with the ways in which ‘emotional eating’ is talked about, described and defined.
What is emotional eating?!
Unfortunately there is not a singularly agreed upon universal definition of “emotional eating.” This means that discussions about this topic can be challenging because what one health practitioner or person describes as an ‘emotional eating’ experience will be different from another person’s description. This is problematic because it limits the ability for an individual to understand, unpack and uncover the root of the emotionally-driven eating experience. Not to mention, culturally the experience of emotionality around food is almost exclusively used in negative contexts which leads many to believing that eating in the context of any emotion is wrong.
What is causing the emotional eating?
Here’s the thing that I need you to know: it’s not possible to truly understand if you are exclusively eating for emotional reasons if you are not FIRST addressing if you are adequately nourished. What many call ‘emotional eating’ may very well be survival-based eating; a way of eating that has allowed the body to continue to function and prevent future famine. Many people in all size bodies can be undernourished, lack diversity of foods/food groups, and go long periods of time without eating. This if often due to years of restrictive eating, lack of access to food, and cultural conditioning.
In this case, experiencing an emotion that provokes eating more than you had intended is not ‘emotional eating,’ but rather the body making sure it gets the food that it needs. Eating more when you are more emotionally vulnerable, and therefore being less strict with diet culture rules, is a valid way of getting your nutritional needs met.
How do I stop emotionally eating?
Despite it being distressing, we need to first honor that there is absolutely nothing wrong with eating to soothe. For many, eating to soothe emotions was, and may still be a necessary tool to get through really hard stuff. The notion of food being a tool to soothe is something that is heavily demonized in this culture due to anti-fatness and the oppression of fat bodies. While therapeutically it is helpful to cultivate and have a variety of coping skills in your tool belt when something stressful or distressing happens, eating to soothe will always be a safe option and tool.
Diet culture demonizes the experience of eating when emotions are present. In reality, the word ‘emotional eating’ is a misnomer because every experience you have with food is emotional. More specifically, we are beings that are constantly feeling things and therefore by definition we are ALL ‘emotional eaters.’
Diet culture, which is deeply intertwined with other systems of oppression, helps us to understand why the idea of eating to soothe emotions is so demonized. Having emotions, especially those that are distressing, overwhelming and may involve tears, are a real cultural “no no.” Take those “unacceptable” emotions, mix that with anti-fatness and diet culture’s rigid rules of only eating to fuel the body and you get the demonization of emotionally-driven eating experiences.
Ways to stop emotionally eating:
Create peace with food and stop dieting. Diet cycling and restricting foods/food groups only tends to led to more emotional eating.
Become an intuitive eater. Intuitive eaters know that there will be times that they will eat to emotionally sooth and that this is ok. They also tend to have less experiences over time of emotionally driven eating experiences.
Get support from an anti-diet dietitian to help you understand how you’ve used food as a coping skill and to help you build up additional tools to cope with overwhelming emotions.
Give yourself permission to eat emotionally. It often feels counterintuitive, but when you’re trying to white knuckle things and tell yourself that you can’t eat emotionally, the opposite usually happens. Creating peace with food means giving yourself permission to eat emotionally.
Normalize eating in the presence of emotions and create a mindfulness practice. Being present to what your emotions are before during and after your meals will be an important part of understanding what’s going on and in learning how to decrease emotional eating.
The reality is having an emotionally driven eating experience is not only ok, it’s normal.
When the words ‘emotional eating’ are used to describe your eating experience, you miss out on the opportunity to understand that which is asking to be understood and soothed. The inherent shame of the the term “emotional eating” can prevent you from understanding the depths of your needs as a human, eating.
In an ideal world, the words like “emotional eating” would just just be called eating, and we would see individuals as complex, food and bodies as morally neutral, and emotions as super important and valid. And in that world, the one in which I seek to create, having an emotionally-driven eating experience would not be blamed on the individual, but rather would help us to understand the human capacity and will to survive and thrive.
You’ll also love…
Get Support for Emotional and Binge Eating in Seattle, WA
Feeling stuck and not being able to get out of cycles of emotional eating and binge eating is exhausting. That's why our caring dietitian nutritionists are honored to offer nutrition support from our Seattle, WA-based virtual counseling practice. To begin working with us, follow these simple steps:
Schedule a free 15-min call using the button below.
Meet with a anti-diet dietitian.
Start creating a peaceful and liberating relationship with food!