Emotional eating is eating in response to feelings instead of physical hunger. It is common, it is not a diagnosis, and it becomes a disorder only when it takes the form of binge eating: recurrent episodes of eating a large amount with a sense of losing control, and marked distress about it. [apa-2022-dsm5tr] The research is also less tidy than the popular idea that people eat to soothe bad moods, because a large meta-analysis of experiments found that negative emotion increased eating in restrained eaters but not in several other groups, while positive emotion increased it in all of them. [evers-2018-emotion-eating] This guide covers what emotional eating is, what the studies show, and where it stops being ordinary and starts being a problem worth treating.
What is emotional eating?
Emotional eating is eating in response to an emotion, such as stress, sadness, boredom or happiness, rather than to hunger. It has no diagnostic criteria, so there is no point at which it officially becomes a condition. Researchers often rely on self-description, which is why the studies below talk about “self-described emotional eaters” rather than a measured group. [evers-2018-emotion-eating]
That vagueness is the reason the term causes confusion. A person who eats a biscuit after a bad meeting and a person who finishes a whole packet in secret and feels sick with shame can both say they eat emotionally, and only the second has a pattern clinicians treat. The rest of this guide is about telling those apart, and about what the research says drives the eating in the first place. Our wider guide to eating disorders covers the diagnoses themselves.
Does eating make the mood better?
Not reliably, and in the studies of binge eating, mood tended to be worse afterwards. A meta-analysis of 36 studies tracked 968 people through everyday life with repeated mood ratings. Negative mood was higher before a binge than at other times, and higher again after the binge than before it. [haedt-matt-2011-affect]
Two cautions apply. Those studies followed people who binge, so they describe binge episodes and not every instance of comfort eating. And they report averages, which cannot rule out that some people feel relief in the moment. What the result does undercut is the simple story in which eating works as an effective mood lifter. If it did, mood would on average be lower afterwards, not higher.
What happens in the lab?
In lab experiments, negative emotion increased eating in restrained eaters and not in several other groups, while positive emotion increased eating in all the groups studied. A 2018 meta-analysis combined 56 experiments with 3,670 participants, in which an emotion was induced and food intake was then measured. [evers-2018-emotion-eating]
| After a negative emotion | After a positive emotion | |
|---|---|---|
| Restrained eaters | Ate more | Ate more |
| Overweight or obese people | No effect on eating | Ate more |
| People with eating disorders | No effect on eating | Ate more |
| Self-described emotional eaters | No effect on eating | Ate more |
The surprise is the bottom of the middle column. People who described themselves as emotional eaters did not eat more after a lab-induced negative emotion. The review also reported high variability between studies, which differences in how the emotion was induced, how eating was measured and the age of participants partly explained. [evers-2018-emotion-eating]
There are two plausible reasons the lab and everyday experience might differ. A few minutes of induced emotion is not weeks of real stress, and a self-label can describe how someone feels about their eating without predicting what they eat on a given afternoon. The studies do not settle which applies. The restrained-eater result also raises a possibility they did not test: that strict rules about food, and not the emotion alone, are part of what sets the eating off.
How is it different from binge eating disorder?
Emotional eating has no criteria and binge eating disorder has several, which is the clearest way to tell them apart. Binge eating disorder is a DSM-5-TR diagnosis built on recurrent binges, and it can be identified by the features below, none of which is part of the definition of emotional eating. [apa-2022-dsm5tr]
| Emotional eating | Binge eating disorder | |
|---|---|---|
| Diagnosis | No, a description of a pattern | Yes |
| Amount | Not defined; can be an ordinary portion | Definitely larger than most people would eat in a similar period |
| Control | Not part of the definition | A sense of lacking control during the episode |
| Frequency | Not defined | On average at least once a week for three months |
| Distress | Not part of the definition | Marked distress about the bingeing |
| Compensation | Not part of the definition | No regular purging, fasting or excessive exercise to make up for it, since that points to another diagnosis |
The loss of control is the feature that matters most and the one outsiders miss, because from outside an episode can look like a large meal. Our guide to binge eating disorder covers how it is recognised and treated.
What sits behind the urge?
A reflection prompt, not a diagnostic test. Tick anything that has been true over the past few months. It describes a pattern and cannot say whether you have a disorder.
0 of 6 ticked
Several features overlap with binge eating, in particular loss of control, secrecy or guilt, and weekly frequency. This is not a diagnosis, but it is worth describing to a doctor, and binge eating disorder responds well to treatment.
Feelings play a part in when you eat, which is common and is not a disorder. Noticing which feelings, and whether dieting makes the urge stronger, is a useful next step.
Few of these apply. Occasional comfort eating is part of ordinary eating and needs no action.
Not a clinical measure, and no screener on this site covers eating problems yet. The hub lists what we do cover.
What helps?
Noticing the feeling before the food is the usual starting point, and the evidence for specific approaches is modest rather than strong. In a systematic review of 14 studies, mindfulness-based programmes reduced binge eating and emotional eating in people who had those problems. Effects on weight were mixed, and the authors called for more research on long-term effects and on how mindfulness compares with other treatments. [katterman-2014-mindfulness] Within that limit, three things follow from the research above.
- Separate the hunger from the feeling. Before eating, ask two questions: am I physically hungry, and what am I feeling? You are not required to stop. The aim is to see the pattern, which is the awareness skill mindfulness programmes train.
- Check whether the eating changes the feeling. In the everyday studies, negative mood was on average higher after a binge, so it is worth finding out from your own notes whether eating shifts the feeling for you or only adds a second one.
- Look at the food rules. Restrained eaters were the group whose eating rose with negative emotion in the experiments, so strict rules about what you may eat are worth raising with a clinician. That is a possibility and not a tested treatment.
If the eating feels out of control, treat that as its own problem rather than a matter of willpower. Binge eating disorder is treatable, and our guide to binge eating disorder sets out what treatment involves.
When to seek help
Speak to a doctor if eating feels out of control, if it happens at least weekly, if you hide it, or if guilt and shame about it fill much of your day. Go sooner if you are restricting heavily, vomiting or using laxatives, or losing weight without meaning to. Describe the loss of control and the secrecy specifically, because “I eat when I’m stressed” can sound like an ordinary habit when the real problem is the part you are embarrassed to say.
If you feel unable to keep yourself safe, contact your local emergency services or a crisis helpline.
How MyFreud can help
The useful question about emotional eating is what comes before it, and that is hard to answer from memory afterwards. Daily tracking of mood alongside what the day contained shows whether the urge follows particular feelings, times of day or stretches of strict dieting, which is the same logic as the studies that sampled mood in real time. It cannot diagnose an eating disorder and does not replace speaking to a doctor.
Download MyFreud and start today: App Store or Google Play.