Emotional Eating

The tendency to eat in response to feelings rather than hunger is named as emotional eating . Emotional eating implies an inclination to eat in response to negative emotions such as depression, dissapointments and feelings of loneliness . During stressful times, eating can be a rewarding, comforting and distracting thing  . Eating is also very social. Meals are often eaten together and food is an integral part of celebrations and sad occasions .  However, eating to regulate emotion can be maladaptive . 

There are important physical and psychological health affects of emotional eating . Greater stress levels were associated with greater amount of food consumption according to self reports and experimental studies . Larger weight fluctations occured in emotional eaters more than non-emotional eaters . When they are under stress, disinhibited eating and overconsumption of high-calorie palatable food cause weight gain in emotional eaters. However, emotional eaters are seem to eat less and lose weight at the time when they are under lower stress. These situation causes weight fluctations over time . Emotinal eating behaviour is also related to various eating disorders. Binge eating, bulimia nervosa and depression are some of these eating behaviours .

When  present findings are evaluated, it is suggested that unhealthy food choices are influenced from both emotional eating and depressive symptoms . It has been suggested that emotional eating increases the consumption of sweet and high-fat foods in particular . In a study which focused on weight fluctations, results showed that  negative emotions evoked by stress cause eating more palatable foods such as chips, hamburger or sodas. These emotions also lead to eating fewer vegetables and whole grain foods . Studies  consistently found association between measures of stress and intake of dietary fat, high fat snacks and fast food. Studies also suggest an association between perceived stres and consuming more sweetened beverages . 

Results of  The Vitamins and Lifestyle Study (VITAL) Study, a current and broad cohort study made in 2014, also demonstrated that higher levels of perceived stres were associated with higher fat intake as a percentage of energy consumed, greater  intake of high-fat snacks, more fast-food consumption, as well as lower carbohydrate intake as a percentage of energy consumed and fewer eating occasion. Intakes of added sugars,servings of fruit and vegetables and sweetened drinks were not significantly associated with amount of perceived stres. VITAL study also found that perceived stress was associated with decreased carbohydrate intake, but one another study made with similar age  group found a positive relationship between each other.  However, the association between perceived stres and percentage energy from added sugar (sugar from non-whole foods) was not evidenced in VITAL study with regards to statistical significance . Perceived stress was associated with fewer eating occasions, including meals and snacks, although only among those people who perceived themselves as vulnerable to stres  . Van strien et al. showed that the high and low emotional eaters did not differ in their food intake, but emotional eating significantly moderated the relationship between mood condition and food intake. They found that low emotional eaters ate similar amounts after the sad and after the joy mood condition. However, high emotional eaters ate significantly more after the sad mood condition than after the joy mood condition (2013) .

The link between stres and emotional eating has been well estalished. Hovewer,  little research has focused on the underlying mechanisms that mediate such an association . Distress is associated with both increased and decreased food intake . Most people eat more in response to stres , whereas some eat less . The typical and predominant response is decreased food intake . Therefore, it is considered that emotional overeating is an inappropriate response to stres . Distress is normally associated with activation of the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis (HPA-axis) with physiological reactions that are designed to prepare the individual for a fight or flight reaction: inhibition of gastric motility and release of sugar into the bloodstream. Consequently, hunger is supressed because of this reactions . However, so-called emotional eaters show the atypical response to distress of eating similar or larger amounts of food . 

It is suggested that chronic activation of the stres response can lead to dysregulation that has been associated with increased appetite, preference for foods  high in sugar and fat, visceral fat accumulation and deposition and obesity . The type and severity of the stressors may also be important to associations with eating. 

Also, repeated exposure to stressors that threaten one’s social self (eg, stressors associated with social position) are thought to especially contribute this dysregulation . In humans , it has been shown that chronically stresssed people report higher scores on emotinal eating, have a greater abdominal fat distribution and have dampened HPA-axis activity . The latter authors hypothesized that highly stressed humans tend to cope with high levels of stres by engaging in stress eating, thereby developing a blunted HPA-axis response . Also,  the feedback mechanisms which are controlling the normalization of eating-related peptides (ghrelin) which signals food initiation might be disturbed in emotional eaters . 

A study made with obese people showed that emotional eating was strongly positively associated to Neuroticism, in particular impulsiveness and depression, and further linked to lower Conscientiousness, Extraversion and Openess, and lower selfdiscipline . Emotional  eating was also found higher in females than males. This situation was interpreted that,  presumably, males have underreported their emotional eating behaviours because of cultural stereotype which perceive  emotional eating as a behaviour women do  .