Mood and Food

Emotion-induced eating has been implicated as a risk factor for the development of obesity. Numerous studies have shown that some people overeat as a way to control negative emotions. One reason for this is that eating during times of emotional distress acts to reduce negative emotional experiences. When most people think about mood and eating, they think about the phrase emotional eating. This can be defined as eating in response to negative emotions which may include stress, anger, anxiety, boredom, sadness, and loneliness. Food can be used to produce feelings of comfort, connection, and love.

The opposite may also occur. For many, mealtimes during childhood may be remembered as a time of family conflict and criticism. As children, many people were rewarded with sweets for being “good.” In attempt to replicate these positive feelings, some people unconsciously or consciously reward themselves with food. Most food rewards are comfort foods, ones that are high in calories and usually filled with sugar and fat. The use of food to manage mood becomes a self-reinforcing habit. Comfort food helps a person feel good in the moment, but it is usually temporary. Once finished overeating, thoughts return to problems or worries. Additionally, many people report having the additional worry of guilt about their overeating. Thus, the result is a vicious cycle.

Emotional eating occurs on a continuum. For most people, infrequent times of emotional eating are normal. We all celebrate with food during the holidays and on special occasions. We also tend to mourn with food and use food to comfort others when something sad occurs, like an illness or a death. Further along the continuum are those who use food as a primary coping mechanism and as a strategy for mood regulation. For these individuals, food is used in reaction to, and as a defense against, any intense feeling or stressful life situation. At the far end of the spectrum are individuals for whom emotional eating has greatly begun to interfere with daily functioning and with life in general. These individuals may have a diagnosable eating disorder, such as bulimia nervosa or binge-eating disorder, and they may also suffer from clinical depression or another mood disorder.

There are both psychological and biological explanations to help explain why people turn to food, even when it causes problems such as depression and obesity.

Stress

One of the biggest contributors to negative mood states is stress. Stress can be defined as the types of things that produce negative emotions. There are two different types of stressors. The first are stressful events—major ones such as a job change or unemployment, a divorce, or a medical problem. The other type of stressors are considered daily hassles, which can be defined as repetitive but chronic annoyances of everyday life such as waiting in line, sitting in traffic, or bad weather. Either type of stress can trigger emotions that lead to overeating. As a result, people under long-term stress tend to gain weight over time. This might be related psychologically to learned coping behaviors (eating in response to stress as a way to cope with negative moods) as well as to underlying biological changes.

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