What Is The Function of Food: Emotional Eating 101
Emotional eating is such a subtle topic and it's such a vast and overarching concept. When we think about emotional eating it's like ‘what are we actually saying when it comes to emotional eating’ and AK believe’s that what it means is that we are using our food, eating and the taste of food to soothe something within us.
What is emotional eating?
Emotional eating is using food to fill your emotional needs, rather than your stomach, in the hopes that it will fix your emotional problems. Emotional eating doesn’t fix your problems and usually makes you feel worse. Moreover, the aftermath of emotional eating typically results in feeling guilty for overeating, on top of your remaining original emotional issue.
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Why food?
Negative emotions may lead to a feeling of emptiness or an emotional void, and food is believed to be a way to fill that void by creating a false feeling of fullness or temporary wholeness. However those false feelings of fullness and wholeness are typically what fuel the emotional eating fire, because once those unsatisfied feelings return emotional eaters turn to food again. The following could be additional factors, other than negative emotions, that may lead to that feeling of emotional void and result in emotional eating:
Retreating from emotional support during times of emotional need
Not engaging in activities that might otherwise relieve stress and/or sadness
Using negative self-talk that is related to bingeing episodes
Not understanding the difference between physical hunger and emotional hunger
Those who suffer from emotional eating could also use food as a means of distraction. They may focus on eating comfort food instead of dealing with an upcoming event or conflict, because it may be a painful situation they’d rather not take part in.
The emotional eating cycle
Occasionally using food as a pick-me-up, a reward, or to celebrate isn’t necessarily a bad thing. However when eating is your primary emotional coping mechanism, you then get stuck in an unhealthy cycle where the real feeling or problem is never addressed. This is when your first impulse is to open the refrigerator whenever you’re stressed, upset, angry, lonely, exhausted, or bored.
An emotional eating cycle typically looks something like this:
Something happens that upsets you
You feel an overwhelming urge to eat
You eat more than you know you should
You feel guilty and powerless over food
Then after you start to feel guilty and powerless over the food you ate, you find yourself back at step one being upset that you feel so guilty and powerless. And this is how the vicious cycle of emotional eating continuous goes. Though it is not impossible to break this cycle, it just takes patience and time.
What are some emotional eating triggers?
Most emotional eating is linked to unpleasant feelings, but it can also be triggered by positive emotions, such as rewarding yourself for achieving a goal or celebrating a holiday or happy event. It’s important to recognize your personal triggers for emotional eating, whether they’re because of a place, situation or a feeling. Common triggers of emotional eating could be one or all of the following:
Boredom
Childhood habits
Not feeling your emotions
Social influence
Feelings of emptiness
If you don’t know how to manage your emotions in a way that doesn’t involve food, you won’t be able to control your eating habits for very long. Moreover, while understanding what your triggers are and how the emotional eating cycle works are two huge steps to taking control, it’s also important to understand how your food plays a role in your emotional eating too.
What is the function of food?
It's really important to reframe our idea of what food is, what food should mean and what food needs to give to us. And this is a much broader and bigger topic because it really requires us to understand our needs and become comfortable with our desires.
Because here's the thing about food, food is meant to be joyful and enjoyed but it's not always meant to be the center of attention. Our food is not always meant to meet all of our needs. So sometimes food is purely just functional. It's just there to make sure that we get nutrition, and we get nutrients into our body so that our cells function properly and our tissues function properly and our organs function properly. It's not always meant to make us feel better or it's not always meant to make us feel super satisfied from a sensual perspective.
Food is not meant to meet our needs
This is something that we can often overlook, possibly when we are sitting down to a meal. And this is something that AK sees often in her clients food journals. They eat something kind of boring and they write something like, ‘I didn't like it, I didn't like my food. It wasn't a good experience for me because it felt kind of blah.’
Getting comfortable with a meal that feels kind of blah is important because our food and our meals aren't meant to meet all of our needs. They're not meant to make us feel things and make us feel better and alleviate our feelings of sadness and alleviate our feelings of loneliness. We can learn about what our feelings are by how we eat, which is one of the amazing insights that food journaling can give you. And it's one of the things AK likes to work on with her clients.
Insight to your food is key
Food is not meant to meet your needs, however it is how a lot of people do feel. They feel like their food should be for them, and a lot of people do feel like their food should meet their needs. So the insight when you realize that your expectation of your food is that it should meet all your needs is really revolutionary once you realize that that's not the job of food. And by recognizing that that is what you want from food, it makes you realize that maybe there's needs that you have and emotions that you have that maybe you're not attending to.
Then we can do the real work and we can start to attend to those needs and emotions that the emotional eating is covering up. So the insight is that your food is not meant to meet your needs and that it's not meant to always bring you this euphoric feeling and it's not meant to always be like ‘I loved everything about this meal.’ Sometimes it's just neutral.
Intention vs expectation
Sometimes it's just ‘I have to eat because I have to live’. It’s important to constantly ask yourself, ‘do I live to eat or eat to live?’ And then sometimes we want it to be something that really illuminates and stimulates our senses but it's something that we've chosen. So if we go into it where we are like ‘This is my intention for my meal’ that's very different from ‘This is my expectation for my meal’. So intention versus expectation is really a huge value in understanding how to navigate and really get a handle on emotional eating.
Lifestyles more susceptible to emotional eating
While anyone can be susceptible to emotional eating, there are certain lifestyles that are more likely to attract it. Once you recognize that you fall within one of these lifestyles, you will be one step closer to taking control. However if you don’t relate with one of these lifestyles, and still find yourself emotionally eating, it does not mean that you still can’t take control.
Scarcity complex
Those who find themselves with a scarcity complex, or with the fear of wasting food, are more likely to become susceptible to emotional eating. Someone who has a scarcity complex often has a deep rooted fear that if they don't finish everything on their plate, they are inherently a bad person. They might also feel this way about eating the free food from work even if they aren’t hungry or that isn’t what they want. This type of lifestyle would be susceptible to emotional eating because the lack of trust that comes with a scarcity complex is one of the main contributors to emotional eating.
what can be done
As an adult, you have the power of choice. There are tools that can help ease your scarcity complex, but only you will know what they are. These tools will help you to slow down enough to understand what motivates your choices. Remember, choice is available at any time and has no judgements.
Easily bored
Those who find themselves easily bored, or with a lot of free time on their hands, are more likely to become susceptible to emotional eating. Someone who is often and easily bored might attempt to distract themself from this experience through emotional eating. They might see boredom as an ideal time because being bored effectively marks an appraised lack of meaning in a present situation and in life. This type of lifestyle would be susceptible to emotional eating because emotional eaters tend to use boredom as an emotional validation to binge.
WHAT CAN BE DONE
Instead of snacking when you're not hungry, try to distract yourself with a healthier behavior to fill your boredom and free time. This can include taking a walk, reading a book, listening to music, partaking in yoga, or even calling a friend.
Overly stressed
Those who are overly stressed, or don’t relieve their stress as often as they should, are more likely to become susceptible to emotional eating. Someone who is experiencing stress on a regular basis and not relieving it, is likely producing higher levels of cortisol, which is a stress hormone that causes cravings. They might be stressed due to outside factors out of their control, or inside factors within their control. This type of lifestyle would be susceptible to emotional eating because the unresolved feeling of stress might be the scapegoat for their emotional eating tendencies.
WHAT CAN BE DONE
If stress contributes to your emotional eating, try a stress management technique, such as yoga, meditation or deep breathing. You might also find it helpful to keep a food journal. By writing down what you eat, how much you eat, and when you eat, you will overtime be able to see the patterns that reveal the connection between your mood and the food you turn to.
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Food is not meant to meet your needs, even though many people feel that way. However once you realize that meeting your needs is not the job of food, you can then begin to work on those deep rooted problems that are most likely the cause behind your emotional eating.
Extra tips to help stop eating emotionally
Resist grabbing a whole bag of chips or other food to snack on. Measuring out portions and choosing small plates to help with portion control are mindful eating habits to work on developing.
Is your hunger physical or emotional? If you ate just a few hours ago and don't have a rumbling stomach, you're probably not hungry. Give the craving time to pass.
Try meditation. Simple deep breathing is meditation that you can do almost anywhere. Sit in a quiet space and focus on your breath — slowly flowing in and out of your nostrils.
