Decoding Emotional Eating and Cravings
Do you find yourself reaching for crisps or chocolates after a stressful day? You're not alone! Emotional eating is a common experience tied to our brain's impulses, our relationship with food, and the cravings we develop.
Why do we turn to food when our emotions are in turmoil? By understanding what’s really going on can help make sense and take better control of the choices we make, becoming more tuned into our bodies and needs, and less reliant on habit and impulse.
Let’s break it down to see what’s going on behind the scenes (or behind the cupboard doors in this case).
Disclaimer
The strategies and research findings in this blog post may not be suitable for individuals with an eating disorder.
If you need support with this, please seek professional help. Additional resources are listed at the bottom of the page.
What are cravings?
Cravings are not the same as hunger, which is your body’s actual need for sustenance. They are those intense urges to eat a specific food and it’s usually not vegetables! For example, that sudden urge to grab a chocolate bar at 3pm could be your brain seeking a quick dopamine (our ‘feel good hormone’) boost.
Cravings are often linked to the brain’s reward system so we get this boost in dopamine which make us feel pleasure especially when we eat something usually with a lot of fat, sugar or salt.
So which types of food do we typically crave and why?
It’s normally high-calorie, sweet, salty or fatty foods. Our brains are wired to crave these energy dense foods because of its need for survival. Think primitive brain, where food was not always readily available, and we still have these same brains in today’s modern world, where food, particularly in western society, is available everywhere and anytime.
Sugar in particular has a very powerful effect on the brain (why modern food supply industry add it to their foods). It lights up the reward centre and is often the type of food we reach for when we are feeling tired, emotional or stressed.
Western Diets and UPFs
In the modern world, our diet of convenience is filled with ultra processed foods (UPFs) [2] foods designed to be tasty and addictive but often lacking in nutrients. While convenient, these foods can create a cycle of cravings due to their combination of fat, sugar, and salt. They’ve been designed that way!
These foods don’t make us feel full or satisfied and we often end up feeling hungry 2 hours later as our body is calling out for nutrients.
Research [1] has shown that UPFs can actually make us crave more of them as they have been designed to trigger all the right buttons in our brains combining that sweet, fatty, salty combo so we come back for more and more, often creating a vicious cycle of cravings.
Remember it’s ok to eat these things in moderation as long as you are the one in control, not your cravings!
Mindless eating
Mindless eating often overlaps with emotional eating. When we’re stressed or distracted, we disconnect from hunger cues and may use food as an emotional crutch.
When we finally do get a chance to relax we’re often on the sofa in front of the tv, or scrolling on our phones, tablets. Or perhaps we are working late to meet a tough deadline and before we realise we’ve finished that packet of biscuits or eaten the entire pizza but didn’t really notice the taste. This is mindless eating.
When we stop paying attention to what we are eating and how we are feeling we lose touch with our body’s hunger cues and fullness signals and we keep eating. Our brains and attention are focused elsewhere.
Relationships with food
For many people food isn’t just fuel for survival it’s tied with comfort, memories and social situations. Rather than thinking of food as good or bad, which is often unhelpful in the long term, focus on including nutritious, diverse foods that will benefit your health.
As kids, we were often told we had to clean our plates or no pudding! Which came from a place of love but led us to stop paying attention to our body’s natural hunger and fullness signals
The link between restrictive eating and cravings should be noted, research [3] indicates that restrained eaters experience more intense and more frequent food cravings than unrestrained eaters and that some studies have shown that dieters vs non-dieters often experience more food cravings.
It was also seen across these various studies that the cravings were more likely to be a result of perceived deprivation and psychological conditioned responses rather than nutritional deficiency. In the studies focused on caloric reduction, participants experienced a decrease in cravings over time, likely due to the brain’s reconditioning and the long-term benefits of replacing unhealthy foods with healthier alternatives.
Our relationship with food often starts at an early age, which is why it’s great when families can adopt healthy eating lifestyles together. Parents and caregivers play a key role in teaching children and teenagers about good nutrition, knowledge that will benefit them well into adulthood. By creating a positive and supportive food environment, families can set the foundation for lifelong healthy choices.
There is a lot of support out there for families, I have linked a couple of examples at the end of this post.
Some simple strategies
Practice mindful eating - look at your food before eating, the digestion process begins here! Sit at the table, chew slowly, and savour the taste of each bite. Free yourself from distractions like devices or the telly for the entire meal.
Tune into your body - if you are habitual in your mealtimes consider if you are hungry at that moment. Eat until you are no longer hungry but not feeling stuffed! Mid-meal check in with how you are feeling. If you’re about to snack, ask yourself, 'Am I truly hungry, or am I bored or emotional’?
Food journals can be useful for some people to recognise patterns in eating behaviours and then come up with strategies to support making changes. Note, maintaining journals can also create unhelpful behaviours so they don’t work for everyone.
Think inclusion rather than exclusion - focus on including diverse, nutrient rich foods rather than excluding certain items entirely creates a positive relationship with food and mealtimes and avoids labelling food as ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Aiming for including more nutrient dense wholefoods regularly and then mindfully having the occasional sugary, salty, fatty food and fully enjoying it rather than having the guilt after can help create this relationship.
Create friction for the habits you want to break - James Clear author of Atomic Habits has great suggestions for how to set habits and re-wire our brains using simple strategies and to help avoid the unhelpful habits we have created over time by making them difficult e.g. having to go out to get the snacks rather than them being in the cupboard with easy access or having fresh fruit or nuts on the kitchen counter rather than biscuits or cakes.
Summary
🧠 Practice mindfulness
🥗 Focus on wholefoods
🕒 Pause before snacking
📓 Track your emotions
By becoming more mindful of our emotional eating habits and tuning into our body signals, we can begin to form a healthier more balanced relationship with food.
Including more wholefoods that help us feel fuller for longer can support a reduction in cravings over time.
It’s important to enjoy life and they things that bring us joy. So we can think about including rather than excluding and good ratio to work to is 80/20 so you can enjoy those favourite takeaways and celebratory moments whilst having a balanced and nutrient dense diet.
Take a moment to check in with yourself before snacking.
Note how you are feeling after making the positive changes.
Start today!
Why not try a mindful meal today or begin by swapping one ultra processed snack for a whole food alternative 🍎
Email me If you’d like some help to start making improvements to your healthy eating habits 🌱
or if you are an organisation who would like in house or online talks delivered to your employees, reach out for more information and check out my talks page here.
Further reading
[1] https://www.bmj.com/content/383/bmj-2023-075354
[2] NOVA classification system for Ultra Processed Foods
[3] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7399671/
Further support
Helplines - Beat Eating Disorders
NHS - Find support in your area
Family Nutritionist Dr Collette Reynolds - Growing Healthy Eaters