Emotional eating is compulsive eating of
food based on a person’
s feelings rather than based on physical hunger and nutritional needs.
One does not have to be overweight to fall in this category.
It’s thus common that emotional eaters associate certain
food with at least one type of feeling of comfort, relief, joy, pleasure, and so on. To put it another way some types of foods end up being used like a drug or alcohol.
In overcoming emotional eating there is a challenge of separating one’s emotions from
food and seeing
food for what it is: as a nutritional source for the body. Like any habit forming and compulsive behavior emotional eating can be overcome.
Emotional eating includes when a person is happy he/she feels a compulsion to
eat; a compulsion to
eat when sad; when tired; a compulsion to eat in order to feel some sense of pleasure; and so on. The obsessive urge to
eat is stimulated by emotions not by physical hunger and nutritional needs.