Emotional Eating Behavior – How to Avoid an Eating Crisis?
There are two reasons for eating, physical and emotional. Physical hunger, which is valid for everyone, is eliminated and life is continued. On the other hand, some people may turn to food to relax, relieve stress, or reward themselves. They often tend to reach for junk food, sweets, and other comforting but unhealthy foods for this type of emotional eating. In short, emotional eating is using food to make you feel better. Unfortunately, emotional eating does not fix emotional problems. It usually feels even worse. This is because in addition to the issue that is giving you emotional distress, it adds an additional negative emotion, such as feeling guilty about overeating.
So, are you an emotional eater?
For this, you can ask yourself the following questions;
Do you eat more when you feel stressed?
-Do you eat when you are not hungry or full?
-Do you eat to feel better? (for example, to calm and soothe yourself when you feel sad, angry, bored, anxious, etc.)
Do you reward yourself with food?
-Does the food make you feel safe?
-Do you think food is friends?
Do you feel powerless or out of control around food?
If your answer to most of the above questions is yes, you may have an emotional eating problem.
