I’m not sure if something is going around, if my clients are all in the feels this week, or if maybe I am just starting to really niche down on who my clientele is – but we have been talking some MAJOR emotional eating in my client calls this past week.
Emotional eating is a touchy topic. Overall, food is emotional. I am in this field because I love how emotions and food are in the same family. I love thinking about food in joyous celebration, nostalgia, comfort, culture, family time, birthdays, holidays, seasonality – all things that carry emotion. And I think it’s beautiful
But when does food and emotion become an issue?
When food is used as a coping mechanism.
I’d argue that food and emotion being closely linked together becomes an issue when a person is reliant on food to cope with or deal with emotions. When someone immediately turns to food to cope with emotional situations, it can cause a harmful relationship with that food or food in general down the line. We need various coping skills in our lives to deal with lots of things, and food is just too sensitive to be used as one.
Unfortunately with this method, we typically zone out or numb out and don’t make any connection with the food whatsoever. All those times you’ve looked at an empty bag or container and said “where did all of that go?” would be an example of an emotional eating episode.
When we are using food as a control mechanism. Similarly to coping, we can use food to give us the illusion that we have control over a situation that we probably don’t. If you are responding to a non-food situation with food then you likely have no more control over your emotional state or the situation than you did in the first place. But since you’ve taken “action” you can trick yourself into thinking you have control when you don.t
In both of these cases, you are using food as a distraction to not meet your needs. Usually at this point, my client says something like “wow that is really deep!” And they’re right! It is! Food is a deeply personal part of life, and so much plays into our food decisions that we just don’t think about on a daily basis.
If you do choose to meet your needs with food after all…
We are human which inherently means we are not perfect, will always be making mistakes and will always be evolving! So there will probably be times that nothing else will work and you just need some food to get you through something.
In that case, I would kindly ask that you do this: sit down with a food and eat intentionally, with full awareness and appreciation of the food you are eating. At least then you are not numbing out or mindlessly overeating. If you are going to use food, use it! Enjoy it and let it do what you want it to do.