A Different Perspective on Emotional Eating

For the past 60 years or more, our society and culture have been fixated on eating habits, body image, beauty standards, and physical health. There have been fluctuating trends through the decades. One thing that has remained consistent is that people have a lot to say about emotional eating, comfort eating, or stress eating.

Emotional eating is often regarded as a weakness or even a moral failure, especially when it centers around fast food or sugar-filled diets. Some go as far as to categorize emotional eating along with eating disorders, showing how misinformed they are on the topic.

While there are genuine concerns for national obesity and ailing health, people tend to focus on the wrong thing, creating more emotional issues and anxiety in the process. Every emotional eater is motivated by something. Sometimes they can be negative emotions, but other times, they are natural, harmless, and in some cases, positive, human, and beautiful.

There is a glorious combination of food, eating, community, and emotions that is at the core of so many of our experiences. Perhaps it is only when we begin to gain a different perspective on emotional eating that we will conquer some of the underlying issues that require more of our focus, like shame, guilt, and despair.

A Different Perspective on Emotional Eating

On the surface, eating and emotions seem to have little to do with each other. The only things they have in common are that everyone must eat to stay alive and everyone will experience emotions, some more frequently and more deeply than others. A person might ignore, repress, or misinterpret their emotions, but only people with an eating disorder will ignore, repress, or misinterpret their physical appetite.

Food and eating are an essential part of all of our lives, beyond the function of simply keeping our bodies fueled. Every person naturally develops a relationship with food and eating. This relationship can be good or bad, and many find it deeply connected to their emotional health.

Emotional eating is far more common than many people realize, and in many cases, far less of a threat or a concern. Behind every compulsion to overindulge or binge eat is an emotion that is being soothed, comforted, or regulated.

It’s not just about negative emotions

When most people hear the term emotional eating, they tend to imagine emotions like sadness, anxiety, or stress. Emotional eating is frequently referred to as stress eating or comfort eating. This implies that we eat because we are distressed, and treat food like a medicine for an ailment. However, emotional eating is about positive emotions, too. Emotional eating is part of everyone’s life, whether they realize it or not.

At almost every wedding, there is an elaborate meal with multiple courses, and a cake as the centerpiece attraction. The same happens at birthday parties, where people enjoy and indulge in the food options. Foods like hot dogs, burgers, and pizzas are an integral part of sporting events and national holidays.

Yes, emotional eating is often about coping with stress and sadness, but it is also an essential ingredient of celebration, enjoyment, and home comforts. Emotional eating teaches us about how we handle emotions.

The fact that we naturally have a negative connotation toward emotional eating shows how poorly we understand and deal with emotions. We have separated a wide variety of emotions into two small categories, and judged people for feeling one type of emotion, while praising them for feeling another set of emotions. This is more problematic than emotional eating.

It’s the framework of many cultures and personal histories

Not only is emotional eating a part of the national experience in our celebrations and enjoyment, but it is a rich part of the many cultures and personal family histories. It is an emotional thing to cook and eat a family meal whose recipe has been passed down through the generations. It’s about the older generations passing knowledge onto the next generation.

Young adults feel accomplished and that much more independent each time they successfully add a new recipe to their repertoire. Not everyone has these kinds of positive connections between family and food, but for those who do, emotional eating is a part of their identity and heritage.

It’s about regulating and co-regulating our emotions

It’s not only the food that is a core component of our culture, faith, and identity. It is the community we share through eating together. When we eat, we experience feel-good hormones like dopamine, endorphins, serotonin, and oxytocin. These hormones help enhance our mood and lift our energy. They can calm heated emotions like anger and anxiety, and lift heavy emotions like sadness and fear.

When we eat with a loved one or a group of friends, we experience a type of co-regulation of our moods. Emotional co-regulation is the friend who buys us dinner when we’re broke, or the neighbor who comes around with a homemade casserole to comfort us after we lose a loved one. In these cases, emotional eating communicates care and concern from those closest to us. We are joined in the simple and necessary act of eating together.

It’s a form of self-protection and self-soothing

We all develop a relationship with food and eating in our infancy, and that relationship naturally grows, develops, and deepens with time. Most children have a favorite food, and one that they completely despise and refuse to eat.

Food is a tool for many parents, who know the quickest way to change a mood or reward good behavior is to bring out a treat. We form mental and emotional associations with food from a young age, and often keep those connections throughout our lives.

There are few things as comforting or exciting as finding a certain food from your childhood, or tasting a flavor from your past. In this way, emotional eating becomes a form of self-protection or self-soothing. It reminds us of a time when life was simpler or we were rewarded. We might gravitate to certain meals or particular foods and drinks unknowingly because they are a part of our personal history, and we subconsciously need the comfort they provide.

It’s an eating behavior, not an eating disorder

People who villainize the idea of emotional eating are often focused on the physical and medical effects of eating too much or eating unhealthy foods. Overindulgence and binge eating do affect our physical health, which can ultimately affect our self-esteem and confidence. However, it’s important to know that emotional eating on its own is not a disorder, but is simply a behavior.

Everyone has a unique relationship to food, which in some cases is part of a disorder that requires physical, mental, and emotional treatment. As of 2025, an estimated 9% of the population has dealt with an eating disorder at some point in their lives, with 0.3% currently dealing with a severe disorder like bulimia nervosa.

There are fewer statistics on emotional eating because it is not classified as an eating disorder. It is estimated, however, that one in five adults uses emotional eating as a form of coping and comfort.

Emotional And Physical Health

Even when emotional eating becomes problematic or a threat to physical health, it is not helped by shame, threats, or disgust. We need to be gentle with ourselves and kind to others, choosing our words carefully and offering our support instead of our judgment. We might have already spent too much time villainizing a behavior that is natural, human, healthy, harmless, and even beautiful.

Our relationship to food will not change until our relationship with ourselves begins to change. There are times when we need to feel comforted, soothed, and regulated in a way that we can only with food and community.

It takes years to fix a faulty relationship with food and self-image. In some cases, we can only be helped by therapy and counseling. If you would like to speak with a counselor about your eating habits and mental health, we can help. Contact us for more information.