Battling Emotional Eating (and Coming Out on Top!)

Picture the scene: your workday was just awful. Your boss got upset with you for something that was your ungrateful client’s doing, which sent you to the bathroom in tears. Mommy dearest called during your lunch break to tell you what a disappointment you are for not having given her the joy of being a grandmother, which then rippled into a fight with your spouse because you were so tense from the day’s events. Where to reach for comfort but your best friend the refrigerator? You see a lonely apple at the bottom of the produce drawer, wince, and then spot that fat piece of birthday cake from your nephew’s party the other day. Mouthwatering at the thought of the sugary frosting coating your eager mouth, you grab the cake and scarf half of it down with your bare hands before you’ve even seen the couch. Ah! Sweet, sweet relief. But the temporary bliss doesn’t last. Instead of jumping on the yoga mat or phoning your flesh and blood best friend to complain, you start poking around the pantry for inspiration. Even though the organic trail mix you enthusiastically picked up last week is right smack in the middle of the shelf, a sleeve of nearly expired sandwich cookies hidden in a dark corner sweetly calls your name. “I’m heeeerrreeeeee”. And this goes on all night until, bloated and ridden with guilt, you put yourself to bed with a healthy glass of Merlot and a series of Top Chef reruns.

This sort of behavior is common throughout the population but is especially prevalent among women. Even though coping strategies such as meditation and exercise are generally accepted, it’s just much easier to find temporary comfort in the carbs and sugars that compose most of the average American supermarket. The conduct in question used to be known as stress eating, but the preferred term today is emotional eating, and for good reason: it isn’t just stress that causes people to binge on junk food. Receiving upsetting news, getting broken up with, or indeed, being placed in a tense situation are all justifiable reasons that women give themselves to think it’s ok to indulge.

Understanding Your Behavior

Emotional eating may seem like the answer at the moment, but in fact it is crucial that in order to completely abandon your healthy food quest, you figure out the root cause of your comportment and act accordingly. For example, it could well be possible that you suffer from chronic stress, depression, or anger issues. These are all very normal aspects of being a person and can be worked on with far better tools than a bag of potato chips. Some common tools to explore could be therapy, exercise, and stress management. Exercise has the added benefit of shedding some of those emotional eating pounds that you’ve likely accumulated with years of indulging in this habit. The gym isn’t your only answer and in fact, it may aggravate your stress since it can be a competitive environment. Try a team sport to build new connections instead, or Ashtanga for a meditative approach to yoga that will leave you blissed out all week long.

Similarly, therapy is an excellent way to work on yourself and tackle other issues besides your emotional eating, such as childhood traumas or selfesteem challenges, all of which may well contribute to the behavior in the first place. A good therapist will act as your confidant and will help you find insights into all sorts of aspects of your life from dietary choices to money management.

Why are you Eating?

Typically, our brains react to unhealthy food in the most primitive ways. When we eat a box of Thin Mints in one sitting, dopamine comes flooding in. This neurotransmitter, responsible for all things pleasure and reward, keeps people shielded against feeling pain and discomfort. Unfortunately, it is also the reason emotional eating is so satisfying in the moment. As time goes on and we continue indulging each time a stressful time comes around, this neural pathway is reinforced.

In fact, the dopamine that is released when you eat sugar is the same as the one that’s kickstarted by drugs and alcohol. Getting into the habit of diving into sugary sweets ends up acting as a band-aid for the stress that you’re compensating for. In this way, we are using food as a numbing strategy instead of letting ourselves feel sad, angry, stressed, or whatever the culprit emotion may be. This is partly a societal issue-as woman, we are not allowed to express intense emotions without alarming our audience. This chain of thought goes back to 1880 when hysteria was first diagnosed by Jean-Martin Chacot. This disorder, exclusive to women, consisted of symptoms including verbalizing anxiety and mood swings, among other (highly unrelated) expressions.

Learning about your eating patterns is essential to shifting towards healthier habits. What can be helpful is to take a breath before giving in to your cravings. During this breath, ask yourself two questions. First, “Why am I eating?”. If the answer is genuinely “I’m hungry”, then you should be able to find satisfaction in carrots and almond butter rather than in a luxury cupcake. If your answer is along the lines of “my day sucked, leave me alone”, first know that you are indeed far from alone in being in this position. This is a great opportunity to explore the true reason behind your emotional eating, so do so in between bites of Greek yogurt instead of rocky road ice cream.

The second question relates to the first and takes the form of “On a scale of 1 to 5, how hungry am I?”. If your number clocks in at 1 or 2, there’s a good chance you were just about to give in to emotional eating. If that’s the case, try a cup of green tea with honey or a walk around the block. The tea will not only comfort your woes but also fill your body with great antioxidants, which is always a plus. And it never hurts to get your steps in.

Keeping a Healthy Pantry

A seemingly obvious way to eliminate emotional eating is to not have the junk food you crave around the house. It takes quite a bit of effort to go to the supermarket every time you want a chocolate bar, and is it worth ordering Instacart for such small purchases? The answer lies in the substitution: instead of chips, choose plain popcorn or even pickles since they are intensely salty and crunchy. If you love to cook, making your own fridge pickles is a breeze and they taste so much better than the store-bought kind. Chocolate is an important craving for women and a difficult craving to curb since the delightful, sweet triggers oh so many parts of the brain. Eating chocolate with a high percentage of cocoa (60% or more) will satisfy part of the craving and is typically much healthier than your average commercial candy bar. On a side note, new research has shown that chocolate cravings can be caused by a shortage of magnesium in the body. Try taking supplements if you feel your cocoa cravings border on addiction.

Emotional eating often takes the form of binging on baked goods. If crackers and cookies are your jam, start by keeping whole-grain sugar-free versions around the house. Because you are likely to enjoy them less, this is an excellent way to reduce, and even eliminate, the gluttonous ritual.

Deterring emotional eating doesn’t mean you have to stop snacking altogether. Instead, a bowl of fruit within eyesight entails that you will be more likely to select that rather than a sugary snack. Mixed nuts, if they don’t contain added oils, are wonderful to have in front of the TV. (As tempting as they are, the mixes containing chocolate are a big no-no).

feeling down in the dumps seconds after you’ve licked the powdered sugar from your fingers, try foods that specifically knock stress out of the way to leave you feeling the bliss you deserve.

Some nice options include oily fish that is full of omega-3 fatty acids, like salmon, or if you don’t mind wrestling with bones, mackerel. The oils in the fatty acids have been found to keep stress hormones under control. This may not seem like the most appealing snack when your teenager has rattled your last nerve, but long term it will be helpful. Speaking of seafood, oysters can also get you back to your chipper self-thanks to anxiety-reducing vitamin B and magnesium. Try them both on the half shell with a nice lemon and shallot dressing or broiled with some garlic breadcrumbs in case the texture of the raw oyster isn’t your thing.

For a friendlier midnight snack, a handful of cherries or a berry smoothie is of the essence because the vitamin C gets your blood pressure back to normal levels when they’ve skyrocketed from the strenuous day. Throw some walnuts in the blender along with your plain yogurt and oat milk to soothe the tension away.

To finish off

Nosh With Stress Reducing Nibbles

Eating unhealthy food may help you feel better in the moment, but the crash can be brutal. Rather than risking

Emotional eating is a very common behavior among women. Because it is something that most people do in shame, the stigma that comes with it is quite high. That need not be the case because you are not alone: according to the

American Psychological Association, 43% of women reported eating unhealthy foods due to stress as of 2023. That is a significant number of allies with whom to find solace. In fact, it may be an excellent idea to join a support group, since it has been proven time and time again that failure most often occurs when working alone to kick a habit. Having a network of people to hold you accountable for eliminating emotional eating is a surefire way of overcoming your challenges. It can be as simple as calling a member of your support system each time you indulge in a bucket of fried chicken: the simple thought of having that conversation is often enough to grab a quinoa salad instead.

As young as you may feel, hormonal and physical changes do occur with time and tend to cause weight gain. Some women experiencing this will in turn develop low self-esteem due to their evolving bodies, thus creating a vicious cycle of emotional eating. Add fast approaching menopause to the mix and we’re looking at a potentially disastrous result if healthy habits aren’t formed that will make this significant life transition a breeze.

Written by: Stephanie Pierce | Stephaniepierce32@gmail.com

Editorial Note: As I begin my journey of Health Eating. I have created a Healthy Eating Vision Board to keep me motivated and focus on my Health Goals. Email Vision Made at visionsmadellc@gmail.com to start creating your Healthy Eating Vision Board.