What Is The Cause of Emotional Eating?
What exactly is emotional eating and why do we do it? Emotional eating is something that a lot of women struggle with and it’s a topic I’m super passionate about.
First, let’s talk about what it is.
Emotional eating is when you eat to cope with feelings rather than eating because you are hungry. Eating becomes a way of escaping what you’re dealing with in the real world. It might be feelings you want to avoid, a difficult event, or any type of hardship you are going through.
Before we go further, though, I want to clarify something here. There is definitely a place for eating food outside of hunger.
Being an Asian American, both of my parents are immigrants. My dad is from Vietnam and my mom is from Indonesia. In both of these cultures, food is so important. In my family, food represents family time, it represents love, it represents feeling comforted. It can also be an important part of celebrations.
Food can even be enjoyed just because it tastes good! Maybe you’re a foodie and you like to go to different restaurants and taste unique things on the menu. Maybe you enjoy Michelin star dinners. You can certainly eat food outside of hunger and simply enjoy the craft and skill of chefs.
Food can also be a way of feeling comforted. Growing up, when I was sick, my mom would make me warm foods like beef soup, and they always made me feel so much better. Even if I wasn’t hungry, she’d give me soup and it just made my body feel warm and comforted.
So this kind of eating is completely okay if it’s done once in a while and it’s not a normal daily or weekly activity.
The problem, though, when eating outside of hunger becomes a frequent thing in your life. For example, if you are doing this three or four times in a week, or even daily.
So why do we emotionally eat?
1. One common reason is because we are disconnected from ourselves.
What do I mean by this?
Often people become disconnected from their emotions and their body. They have no idea what is going on in their mind or what their body is feeling. Anyone interested in being in tune with the soul can also consider disconnection from the soul, which can also cause emotional eating. I’m a christian and I think the soul is a very important aspect of being human, and it’s something we all need to care for and nurture.
You’re probably wondering, “How does it get to this point? How do we become disconnected from ourselves?”
Disconnection is a result of our lifestyle.
Sometimes we have a very busy lifestyle. Sometimes this is not even by choice and you simply have an overload of responsibilities. Maybe you’re a mother of two or three children, maybe a single mother, and you also have to work two or three jobs. Maybe you’re a student who’s going to school full time and also working full time. Or maybe you’re someone who has a lot of responsibilities around the house, such as being a caretaker for a loved one. Sometimes we’re just overloaded with situations and circumstances that are out of our control.
Sometimes we’re under a lot of stress and we have to disconnect from our body in order to survive. At these times, disconnection from the body can actually be a way to help our minds dissociate from what’s going on around us so that we will not shut down. It allows us to still be functional and do the things we need to do. This is a survival mechanism and can actually be very helpful in the short term.
For example, if you have an emergency, like a car accident, or if you need to take a loved one to the hospital, disconnection from your body and emotions can actually help. It can energize you to get in the car and drive your loved one to the hospital, check them in to the front desk, and make sure all the paperwork is signed. You are able to do all of that because you’re not concentrating on feeling overwhelmed.
So disconnection only becomes an issue when you continue to be disconnected from how you’re feeling and from your spiritual life over time. When this goes on for the long term, all of those pent-up emotions, body stiffness, and stress you’re holding are going to come out in a chaotic way. Sooner or later, one way or another, it will all come out.
And that is something that can lead people to emotionally eat. They turn to food to soothe them, as a way to deal with all the pent-up emotions and make them go away.
But food is not a permanent fix, only a temporary fix for the moment. And then it happens day after day after day until it becomes a habit. At this point, the brain actually adapts to think of food as the soother and it becomes a normal part of the person’s life.
2. Another reason people emotionally eat is that they are not sure what they actually need.
This is a result of the first reason - being disconnected from themselves. Because they have no idea what they’re going through emotionally, they have no idea what their body needs, what their soul needs, or what needs to be done.
Because they aren’t able to come up with practical ways to care for themselves, they turn to food. It seems that food is always there, it’s a quick fix, and it makes them feel better, like they are helping the situation. But really, they’re not addressing the actual need.
Sometimes the actual need can go deep. Sometimes the need you are feeling as an adult can stem all the way back from your childhood. Maybe something was withheld from you as a child. You weren’t able to cope with your emotions or you weren’t given the attention that you needed because your parents worked so much. So it could be that the need you had when you were a child carries on now as an adult.
Or maybe the need you’re carrying is to let go of bitterness or resentment. Maybe you are unaware that you still have something against someone who hurt you. I strongly believe that holding resentment and hate turns the heart black and causes so many problems. It’s so important to get to a place of forgiveness and letting go.
Another need you might have is self care. This one is more practical. Maybe you don’t need to analyze your heart or your childhood but just to pay attention to your basic needs in your life now. Do you need to clip your nails, or put on lotion, or go take a shower? When you’re not able to care for those practical needs, sometimes your body feels it, your mind feels it, and it can result in emotional eating.
Now that we’ve talked about what can lead us to emotional eating, what can we do about it?
I want to give you a three step process that can help you deal with your emotional eating.
1. First, analyze your emotions. Sit down, take the time to journal, talk to a friend, even talk to a professional, like a counselor. What are you feeling? Being honest about what is happening will be so helpful. You’ll be able to address what’s really going on deep down inside. Our actions, if we’re being real, tend to be a result of what’s going on inside us.
2. Second, analyze your trigger. Usually, when we turn to food to get a need met, there is some sort of trigger that causes us to make that decision in that moment. Try to identify what it is for you. For example, what time of day do you usually emotionally eat? Is it in the afternoon, or evening, or late at night when everyone’s asleep?
Your trigger could also be a particular event. Maybe you tend to emotionally eat after a work meeting, or when you finish school, or when you just came back from grocery shopping. What is the trigger for you?
3. The third step to dealing with emotional eating is to find a way to meet your needs outside of food. Take the time to identify what exactly you need and take the time to do that. You can even put time in your schedule to meet that need for yourself.
I hope this brings some clarity and helps you on your journey to health and wholeness
If you have questions or need any support along the way, email me at cktan@verticalmovementwellness.com. Or send me a message on Instagram @verticalmovementwellness. I’d love to help you!
Your Health Coach,
Dr. Cindy Kimmi Tan
Rather Listen to This Blog Post? You can listen to the podcast episode! , “What Is The Cause of Emotional Eating?”