Emotional Eating

Occasional emotional eating is normal. Everyone has celebrated with food before, that's what birthday parties, Christmas lunch and BBQ's on SuperBowl day and the Forth of July are all about. But emotional eating can become a serious problem when it leads to negative emotional and physical imbalances in our lives.

Frequent emotional eating can easily become a destructive cycle. Emotional eating becomes entrenched in the lives of its sufferers when they use food to regulate their mood, cope with stress or overcome feelings of anxiety or boredom. This type of behaviour can easily lead emotional eaters to become overweight or obese because many of them feel hungry most of the time.

"Satisfying" this insatiable hunger with food, many emotional eaters consume far more calories than their body needs and they gain a lot of weight which becomes extremely difficult, if not impossible to lose.

common signs of emotional eating:

Eating during times of strong emotions, like anger or depression. Eating when bored. Rapid eating. Eating immediately after arriving home from work. Eating until uncomfortably full. Feelings of disgust, depression, or guilt after overeating.

Are you an emotional eater?

To find out if you might be an emotional eater, rate yourself on the following statements about your current lifestyle (adapted from the book Fattitudes: Beat Self-Defeat and Win Your War with Weight, by Jeffrey R., Ph.D. Wilbert, Norean K. Wilbert, St Martin's Press, NY, 2000.) using the scale:

1. I've try to lose weight, but always fail.

2. I don't feel in control of my eating.

3. I often eat when I'm not hungry.

4. I eat food when I'm stressed or upset.

5. I eat food for pleasure or as a reward.

6. I think about food a lot.

7. I can't stay on track when dieting.

8. I binge eat.

9. I feel ashamed of myself and my eating habits.

10. Food helps me deal with feelings.

Add up your TOTAL SCORE

Interpretation:

0 – 10. It is very unlikely that you are an emotional eater.

11 – 20. You engage in some emotional eating but it's unlikely that it is harmful.

21 – 30. You are a moderate emotional eater and should consider professional assistance.

31 - 40 You are a heavy emotional eater. Professional assistance is highly recommended.

Here are some suggestions that may help you overcome problematic emotional eating:

• Become aware of your motivations for wanting to eat.
• When you feel like eating, ask yourself if you could possibly be upset instead of hungry.
• Keep believing in yourself. You are in control and have the power to make changes in your life.
• Develop new mood regulation strategies. For example, share your problems when anxious and exercise when you're bored.
• Remember support is available. If you need to, find a weight loss class, hire a lifestyle coach or engage a licensed therapist.
• Focus on the things that matter. Like taking care of yourself, improving your emotional well-being, eating well and exercising.
• Be wary of using diets. Dieting can lead to more emotional eating and won't help you to address the underlying reasons for being overweight.
• Love yourself for who you are and forget about trying to be perfect.

Don't swallow your emotions for the sake of sparing others from getting upset. If they've upset you, let them know about it and tell them that you won't tolerate that kind of behaviour in the future.

Focus on the cause and solution rather than the affect. Constantly focusing on the negative symptoms of the problem won't help you solve them. Focus on what you're going to do about your current circumstances rather than the circumstances themselves.