Is Emotional Eating an Eating Disorder?

Many of us over the course of our lifetimes have probably had a bite to eat or two simply because of the emotions we were feeling at the time. Maybe we were extremely happy about something good that occurred in our life and we splurged on a huge meal just to celebrate. Or perhaps we were trying to get over the breakup of someone special to us and we began to gorge on junk food to help to deal with the pain. Both of these scenarios are fairly common and most of us don't give them one second thought. But the fact of the matter is, these are incidences of emotional eating and they can in fact lead to a serious eating disorder.

The difference between emotional eating and a normal diet is that emotional eaters don't necessarily pay attention to their bodies signals that tell them when they are full. Instead, they continue eating to feel satisfied based on whatever emotion it is that they are feeling, not a physiological response. This is where the danger can occur. Eating for any other reason than because your body needs nutrients is not necessarily the wisest idea. Doing this over the course of years and years can lead to significant weight gain.

It may not be needed to go into all the reasons why weight gain can cause us negative consequences, but it is important to note that many of us take for granted the extra calories we put into our body during times of stress, fear, anger, resentment or other emotions that leave us feeling incomplete and craving food to help make us whole again. This additional weight gain over time can lead to high blood pressure, diabetes, certain forms of cancer, heart disease, heart attack, stroke, and more.

While the negative consequences above are certainly nothing we want to deal with, the small day-to-day emotional eating that occurs is not usually identified as an eating disorder. But if you find yourself eating more and more to avoid the emotional feelings of any of the examples listed above, this can lead to a very serious condition called binge eating. Binge eating is a type of disorder where someone will begin eating whether they are hungry or not and not stop until massive quantities of food have been taken in. Once they have eaten thousands of calories, the person then will usually purge them self to try to get rid of all the food. Together, binging and purging such as this can lead to a condition called bulimia which is one of the most prevalent eating disorders in our society.

So, having a piece of cake after a long hard day to help forget about your stress is not necessarily a bad thing. But choosing to eat simply to avoid dealing with the emotions can lead to extremely harmful conditions over time and become a serious eating disorder that may affect your health and even lead to your premature death. Make sure to take note of your eating habits so that you don't fall into the trap of having emotional eating take over your life.