23 Nov, 2024
5 mins read

How to Break Free of Emotional Overeating

Sometimes we turn to food not because we are physically hungry, but because something is “eating us” emotionally. Many of us were taught that food can “soothe a mood,” and that by eating something when we’re upset, we will find comfort. Can you remember being a child when you fell down and scraped your knee and your mom gave you a cookie to make you feel better? Even into adulthood, we continue to use food to soothe our moods, only now with negative consequences: We realize that we still haven’t dealt with what was bothering us in the first place after we’ve consumed an entire tub of ice cream, plus we’ve eaten way more calories than our body needs. And we usually end up getting mad …