Food is among the most comforting things when we experience emotions beyond our control, but emotional eating isn’t the solution.
A licensed therapist details ways to cope with emotional eating with two practical solutions that benefit your health in the long run, as what you choose to eat directly impacts your brain and overall health.
What is emotional eating?
Emotional eating isn’t limited to sadness or grief. Nearly every unregulated feeling can make us crave certain foods.
Marriage and Family therapist Eamma McAdam uses her YouTube video to explain the meaning of emotional eating and the different reasons that prompt people to turn to food.
She says, that most of the time we try “to regulate our emotions with food”, instead of processing them. For instance, you may want to explore a new restaurant in town and taste new flavors when bored or restless.
Similarly, a lot of us turn to desserts, sodas, or anything sweet and “pleasurable” upon feeling low or depressed, as the taste is associated with happiness thanks to commercial brands further selling the idea.
There are several instances like the ones stated above that drive us to eat mindlessly, but you can break the habit by following the therapist’s advice.
Two ways to cope with it
Emma doesn’t recommend depriving yourself of favorite foods to deal with emotional eating. She rather suggests identifying the emotions behind it.
So each time you crave a certain food, ask yourself why you want to eat it and if it’ll benefit you in the long run. Eating sugary foods could make you feel good temporarily, while it can negatively impact your health and also tire you easily due to the fluctuation in your blood sugar levels.
In addition to being conscious of your eating habits, you must find ways to replace your cravings with other things that make your life more fulfilling.
Say you’re bored and can’t stop thinking of your favorite snack, try to pick up a new habit to kill boredom, such as a sport or a puzzle.
The therapist does note that it takes time and consistency to process your emotions, but you can break the habit of emotional eating once you have learned to regulate your feelings.
Emma McAdam is a Marriage and Family Therapist- based in Utah, United States. She has over 14 years of experience as a therapist, having worked with different organizations. She is best known for her content on the YouTube channel Therapy in Nutshell.
She founded The Center for Hope in 2015 for private practice and has since been helping patients with depression, PTSD, and other disorders using Family systems theory, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and Relationship-based treatment.
