z3456511 #EatingMyFeelings: The Dangers of Stress Eating

An Introduction to Emotional/Stress Eating

People of say, "Follow you heart" (i.e. ‘follow your emotions’) and you will make the right choices. For many people (myself included), eating with our heart and emotions is a common thing. But is it wise to eat according to our emotions? 

Many individuals use emotional eating as a method to their supress negative emotions [1] or as a means of distraction or escape from their negative or stressful emotional state [2].

In Australia and other advanced economies with widely available and affordable food, ‘emotional eating’, or more specifically ‘stress eating’ is becoming more common. In 2014, one in four people in the country reported moderate to severe levels of stress and the percentage of people who used eating as one of the methods to cope with stress had increased to 59% [3].

This blog post aims to increase awareness of the dangers of stress eating by exploring the nutritional aspects of stress eating with regards to the types of foods preferred by stress eaters and the health effects of these actions.

What Is This ‘Stress Eating’ You Speak Of?

MedicineNet.com [4] defines emotional eating as the “tendency of its sufferers to respond to stress by eating, even when not hungry, often high-calorie or high-carbohydrate foods that have minimal nutritional value”.

Emotional eating is also most often defined as (over)eating in response to a negative affect [5], usually a negative emotion such as stress, anger, fear, loneliness, boredom or sadness.

If that was too hard to digest (haha, get it?), ‘stress eating’ basically refers to eating (usually overeating) in response to stress as a way of alleviating the negative state or feeling.

Personally, I am a huge emotional and stress eater myself because I would answer ‘yes’ to the following questions [6]:

If you also answered ‘yes’ or know of someone who would to the above questions, the person you’re thinking of is probably an emotional or stress eater.

So how does stress eating affect a person?

How Stress Eating Influences Human Health

First, let’s go with the more widely known (and rather obvious) assumption:

          Stress Eating = Consuming More Food = Weight Gain

We don’t have to be maths geniuses to work out the above equation.
As mentioned previously, people who are stressed tend to overeat and (surprise, surprise) the more we eat (all other things kept constant), the more weight we gain.

More than that, a lesser known but extremely scary fact is that under stress, emotional eaters tend to pick sweet, fatty foods with high-calorific contents and snacks over healthier alternatives [7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12].

I can personally vouch for the above findings because my heart often tells me to go for the Snickers bar over an apple or orange during stressful times.

This finding poses serious implications for emotional eaters. K

How so?

As if it wasn’t enough being told numerous times by the lovely educators in the GENM0707 course that an increase in consumption of sugary, fatty, processed foods does in fact result in a higher body fat content which is harmful to our health, here I am to remind you of that! Consuming these types of unhealthy foods could lead to obesity, putting you at a higher risk of Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) problems, hypertension, Type 2 diabetes, certain types of cancers, and gallbladder disease [13, 14, 15].

My thoughts exactly.

No sir, you would not ‘rather be fat’.

Why Is An Awareness Of ‘Stress Eating’ and Its Effects Important Now?

As evidenced by the 2014 survey [3], stress eating seems to be an increasing trend in Australia implying that the number of stress eaters could keep increasing. Besides that, stress eating could actually be a symptom of a deeper issue like a more serious eating disorder (E.g. Binge Eating Disorder) and possibly, even a psychological disorder like depression [4], both of which require support and rehabilitation.

With the advancement of media technology, marketers today use all kinds of strategies to get people to consume their unhealthy products by implying that eating their food will make you feel happier or provide a the consumer positive emotional relief (E.g. McDonalds’ Happy Meal). WRONG. We all know that consuming unhealthy food as a coping mechanism really does more harm than good to your body [4].

Another big factor for why stress eaters should be aware of their actions is because sweet and fatty processed foods are becoming increasingly available to the population. Clearly, Australia in the 21^st century does not face the problem of food scarcity; rather it possesses an abundance of affordable and readily available food. The real problem arising from this privileged position is the unwise food consumption decisions – where tastier, unhealthier and cheaper processed snacks are chosen over the healthier options [8], despite awareness regarding their adverse effects on a person’s health and nutrition.

What now?

With the availability of fast food, instant food, snacks and general processed food being such attractive and convenient options, stress eaters are exposed now more than ever to these easier but terrible alternatives. It is so easy to quickly scan the shelves for the tastiest and cheapest option available and gobble it up in an instant, regardless of its nutritional value to the consumer.

Our country is already facing an obesity epidemic with projections suggesting that the prevalence of overweight and obesity will increase to over 70% by 2025 [16]. Guess what? It isn’t just Australia who’s facing this issue, it’s a global problem too [17]. Therefore, if individuals are not made aware of the detrimental effects of stress eating and if they do not take conscious steps to curb this habit by watching what, when and how they eat, they significantly increase their chances of being overweight and obese, exposing themselves to higher chances of obtaining serious illnesses [12].

Conclusion

Stress eating is a serious topic and is not an issue to be taken lightly as it poses severe potential consequences to the stress eaters and those around them. Often times, individuals prone to stress eating feel out of control and should thus be offered proper support and educated on ways to change their habits. Since ‘prevention is better than cure’, the government should continue allocating resources to helping and supporting people in making healthy choices regarding their nutrition and health, or else a lot more resources will be required to combat the increased rise in the obesity epidemic.

Finally, here is a link with tips and support to help you stop emotional eating:

Don’t Eat With Your Heart, Rather Eat For Your Heart J [18]

You can do it!

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