Is emotional eating always a bad thing?

On screen, episodes of emotional eating are often treated with a dramatic flair. Characters — usually women — are pushed to an emotional precipice, and eating is their only way to cope. There is Elle Woods in Legally Blonde despondently eating a box of Valentine’s chocolates in bed post break-up; Betty Draper on Mad Men spraying whipped cream directly into her mouth after picking up the kids from her ex-husband (and his new wife’s) apartment; Hannah Horvath in the pilot episode of Girls feverishly volleying between plates while at dinner with her parents who have just announced they’re cutting her off financially.

But the reality of emotional eating is often a lot less theatrical. It’s when, at the end of a long, stressful day, you grab the bag of chocolate chips to lift your mood. Or when you’re nervous about an upcoming presentation so you work your way through a bag of potato chips. Those kinds of behaviors are completely normal and fine to do once in a while, but there are certain signs that your emotional eating may be negatively impacting your mental and physical health. Here’s how to know the difference.

What is emotional eating?

Emotional eating is when you eat to contend with feelings (as opposed to because you’re physically hungry). “Usually this happens when you’re experiencing negative emotions, such as sadness, anger, anxiety, loneliness, or boredom,” says Deborah Beck Busis, LCSW, a licensed clinical social worker and director of the Beck Institute Weight Management Program. When those negative emotions surface, says Busis, people may have thoughts like “the only way I can feel better is if I eat” or “because I’m feeling bad, I deserve to eat.”

Emotional eating tends to happen fast, with awareness of what you’re doing sometimes not kicking in until after you’re done, says Catherine Gunia, a Coach and program and curriculum project coordinator at WeightWatchers. You may look down and be shocked that half of the pint of ice cream is gone. And while emotional eating tends to be linked to negative emotions, it can also occur when you’re feeling positive ones, like excitement. “In that case, people often want to keep that emotion going,” Busis explains.

The thing is, it works. Eating delicious food stimulates the production of dopamine and serotonin, which make you feel good and want to eat more. This is one reason some people taking a GLP-1 weight-loss medication feel less of a desire to emotionally eat. The medications target the reward center of the brain, reducing motivation to seek out palatable food. “Some of our clients using them still have the urges to eat when stressed, sad, or anxious, but it’s easier for them to override those urges and engage in helpful coping strategies,” says Gunia.

What’s really going on

There can be a lot of shame surrounding emotional eating — with someone feeling like they lacked the self-control to stop themselves from turning to cookies when they felt stressed. But that’s an outdated way of thinking about why people make the food choices they do, which minimizes factors like genetics, learned behaviors, and the food environment.

“I think what’s happening is that people are just responding to all the macro forces pushing them towards eating certain things,” says Jason Lillis, Ph.D., an associate professor in the department of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University and a research scientist at the Weight Control and Diabetes Research Center of The Miriam Hospital.

Lillis sees a few major forces at play. First, our biology was designed for food scarcity, not the environment we live in now where we can easily find unlimited things to eat. On top of that, the kind of food that’s readily available has changed in the past 50 years. “We are decades into food science where corporations are learning how to make foods more addictive and cheaper and get them into your hands in as many ways as possible,” says Lillis, pointing to the ubiquitousness of cheap and convenient ultra-processed foods.

Research suggests the social and environmental context plays a major role in how likely we are to eat in response to emotions. “This behavior is less about someone’s individual feelings and more about all this stuff that’s happening around us that’s completely out of our control,” Lillis explains.

How to know when it’s a problem

First things first: Emotional eating is not classified as an eating disorder. And for some, it’s not really an issue. For instance, you may do it pretty infrequently, feel like you have other ways of coping with your emotions, and are at a healthy weight. In that situation, emotional eating isn’t something you likely need to change.

But if you find yourself doing it often or it’s negatively impacting your life, it may be worth taking a closer look. “For many, food is their primary, and sometimes only, coping mechanism for negative emotions and has been for nearly their entire lives,” says Busis. Relying on food to suppress or avoid emotions can make them harder to manage over time. Emotional eating could also be a factor if you have overweight or obesity. A recent study showed that “when we eat out of emotion, we tend to eat foods that are higher in saturated fats and sugars,” Gunia says. This can help explain why research shows a link between how often people emotionally eat and their BMI.

How to break the emotional eating cycle

If you find yourself wishing you didn’t eat to cope with your feelings as often as you do, there are steps you can take — all of which are key strategies taught through the WeightWatchers Program, particulary in Workshops:

1. Recognize your hunger cues. This is all about awareness and learning if you want to eat because you are physically hungry or for some other reason. Sometimes simply understanding the difference can help you hit pause. It’s likely physical hunger if you feel a rumbling, empty-feeling stomach, which may be accompanied by fatigue, irritability, or difficulty concentrating.
   
   
2. Embrace distractions. If you are not physically hungry, finding other mood-lifting activities to replace eating can help. This might be calling up a friend who always makes you laugh or pulling up a video clip that always gives you the warm-and-fuzzies (Darcy walking out of that pond in Pride & Prejudice perhaps?).
   
   
3. Know your pain points. Recognize situations and stressors (maybe it’s work, financial stress, relationship issues, or plain old exhaustion) where you’re more prone to emotionally eat. It can be helpful to make a plan ahead of time for alternative ways you could respond to these stressors. That way, when those triggers arise, you can expect your body to crave certain foods and might be more mindful about how you respond.
   
   
4. Wait it out. Putting a little space between the emotion and the action of eating can go far in helping someone escape the habit loop, says Gunia, who frequently turns to what WeightWatchers calls the “wait 5” method. “Just give yourself a little bit of space with 5 minutes of waiting and doing anything, like taking a shower or stepping outside,” she says. “Even if you go back and still eat, the likelihood is that you’ll eat less, you’ll eat slower, and you may choose something healthier.”
   
   
5. Practice mindfulness. Mindfulness is the practice of bringing non-judgmental attention to the present moment. This is something to do throughout the day, not just when you’re about to emotionally eat. “Over time, practicing mindfulness can help make your mind more flexible,” says Busis, adding that then, when you have a desire to eat, you may be able to pause your behavior and calmly make a decision from a more centered place. Research backs this up, showing that practicing mindfulness can help reduce stress, emotional eating, and food cravings. Meditation is a great way to do this, as it can help focus your mind on what’s going on in the moment, your breaths, and your senses.
   
   
6. Ask for help. A big part of reducing emotional eating is learning how to process your uncomfortable feelings in a healthy way. And this is where a licensed therapist can help. “Many people who have been entrenched emotional eaters for decades need therapeutic or skilled coaching to help them identify triggers, do cognitive restructuring, and build an arsenal of alternative coping mechanisms,” says Busis.
   
   
7. Go easy on yourself. A helpful part of reframing some of these feelings coupled with food is allowing yourself some grace during the process. Says Lillis: “There needs to be a substantial amount of self-compassion.”