Can emotions influence eating habits?

Most certainly. For many people, feelings and emotions are a much more important determinant of eating behavior than are true physiological signals of hunger or satiety. Emotions can influence eating habits throughout the day, from sunrise to sunset. Eating in response to certain feelings, misperceiving feelings of tiredness as hunger and the plain old habit of reaching for food at designated mealtimes (like grabbing a sandwich at noon-even if you’re not actually hungry) are a few of the most common categories of "emotional eating."

If eating takes place under similar emotional circumstances on a regular basis, it is very likely that you’ll soon learn to associate that feeling with eating. For instance, if a child is given a cookie whenever they feel sad or depressed, then they may grow up to associate the feeling of sadness with eating cookies (and feeling better). The result is an adult who reaches for cookies whenever he or she feels sad and needs an emotional boost.

Although emotions can significantly influence many dietary choices, they certainly don’t need to be strong determinants of eating habits. By identifying habitual eating responses to various emotional states (tiredness, boredom, sadness, nervousness, stress, anger, frustration, etc.) you can avoid inappropriate eating behaviors. For instance, if you find that you typically snack when you feel bored, then next time you feel bored make an effort to stay busy, go for a walk, or call a friend to talk-anything that will keep you from eating just because you’re bored.

The types of food that you choose to eat in certain situations is important. Reaching for a high fat, high sugar food like cookies or cake is obviously not the best response to a given emotional state. Instead, substitute an activity for the eating response. When this is not possible, however, choosing healthier foods is a wiser choice. Instead of high fat and sugar snacks, reach for low calorie snacks such as pretzels, fruits and low fat yogurt.

Emotions play a more dominant role in determining eating behavior and food choices than true physiological signals of hunger and satiety. Learning to identify inappropriate eating behavior in response to emotions and feelings is an important step in controlling and maintaining a healthy body weight. Planning responses to future emotional states can help individuals control their eating responses. For instance, an inappropriate eating response to stress might be to eat an ice cream sundae. A better approach would be to recognize the stress as a trigger for ice cream eating and avoid it by going for a walk. Remember that emotions can influence eating, Learning to control specific responses to specific feelings can help you gain control over emotional eating.