Staci Hurst

S. Maenhardt
Argument Essay
2/26/16
Emotionally Bound to Food
When someone hurts your feelings and you start feeling a whirl wind of emotions, what
do you turn to for comfort to get your emotions under control? Some might feel like they want to
go to the gym. Some may have a mental breakdown and just feel like they want to cry. These are
only some of the coping mechanisms we have come to use in order to deal with stress when
someone has said hurtful things to us or when we feel stressful. Then there are some people, like
me, who turn to food in order to calm their feelings and give them a sense of comfort.
In an online forum, user daisytrousers asked if anyone else used food as a cooing
mechanism for anxiety. User dare2diva replied and said, Whilst I dont suffer anxiety, I have
bipolarmy drug of choice is food. I am morbidly obese and I have been self medicating with
food from a young age. The problem with food is that it is legal Food is a drug that is legal.
We need it to survive, but we also abuse it. There are so many of us that come home from a
horrible day at work and head straight to the junk food. There is something about the junk food
that draws us to it and keeps us coming back for more.
The media can play a huge factor in even promoting that its okay that we eat this way
because they sell the promise of emotional benefits, such as bliss, love, escape and feeling
good (Borboa, Michele, MS.). We see this in a lot of movies. For example, in the movie John
Tucker Must Die, Kates mom goes through a lot of breakups. The way we see her deal with it
is by eating a spoonful (or five) of chocolate frosting. That is just one of many examples that

could be listed. The media is subconsciously promoting eating as a coping mechanism when you
want to deal with your emotions and they dont care if they make people obese and give them
health problems because they are there to make money. Its interesting how we might not notice
thats what is happening until were older or until we start doing some research on the topic.
Many people use food as a coping mechanism, but did you know that we are wired to eat
when stressed?
Before you beat yourself up or get mad at your mom for trying to make
everything all better with food, consider your bodys biological response to stress.
"Eating in response to emotion is a natural, hard-wired response that we all have,"
explains Albers. "We can thank the stress hormone cortisol for igniting cravings
for sugary, fatty foods during moments of stress.
However, while emotional eating is a "natural response," Albers says it doesn't
mean that eating is the only way to get your cortisol levels in check. She
recommends soothing activities like relaxation, sleep, drinking hot tea and other
non-food activities to help to rebalance your cortisol levels. ( 10 Ways to Soothe
Yourself without Food).
In other words our bodys natural reaction to stress is that our body wants a sugary, fatty
food in order to make it feel better. You could say that this why when we are at work for instance
and feel stressed, we want to go for that sugary donut that might be sitting in the break room
because it is a fast cure to the stress that our body is going through. This can cause a lot of
problems such as obesity, diabetes, heart disease and other health factors that can impact us for
the rest of our lives. Sometimes we may not realize that just because it tastes good and makes us

feel good for a little bit, that it is secretly not only harming our bodies but it only takes care of
the problem for so long.
If you were able to talk to some of these people that have some of these diseases that
were mentioned above, you might come to find out that they have quite a bit of stress in their
lives and are emotionally damaged. Whether it be stress from work, family issues,
boyfriend/girlfriend problems or even spouse and children issues that might need to be dealt
with. But because our bodys natural reaction is to get that quick fix from sugary and fatty foods
it is only fixing the problem temporarily and causing us to be less and less healthy in the long
run. Once we come down from the sugar high that helped us cope with the stress weve been
dealing with, we realize that we still have the problems to fix. So we go back to the food for
comfort again. Its a scary, dangerous health cycle that we need to try to break.
First, to try and break the habit of using food as a way to cope, you need understand the
difference between physical hunger and emotional hunger. A few examples of physical hunger
are, tends to come on gradually and can be postponed, can be satisfied with any number of
foods, once full, youre likely to stop eating, and doesnt cause feelings of guilt (Emotional
Eating). A few examples of emotional hunger are, feels sudden and urgent, causes very specific
craving (say, for pizza or ice cream), you tend to eat more than you normally would, and can
cause guilt afterwards (Emotional Eating). Once you understand the differences between
physical and emotional hunger, you can start to figure out other things to do in place of
emotional eating.
Some of the solutions that we might be able to come up with ourselves should be possible
a little healthier than maybe grabbing that last cookie or reaching for those chips in the cupboard.
According to Michele Borboa, MS., some ways to cope with your emotions are, giving yourself

a massage, having a cup of tea, getting some sleep, chewing gum, walking off cravings, change
your eating behavior with worry beads, rely on purposeful distraction, and breathe deep. Some
might wonder what worry beads are, and she explains them as being used to work off nervous
energy instead of wrapping your fingers around the first indulgent food you can find. Another
thing you could try instead of the worry beads is wearing a rubber band or hair elastic on your
wrist and when you feel the urge to eat when youre bored, sad, mad, etc. you use the item on
your wrist to flick yourself. It hurts slightly, but eventually you might cut back on your emotional
eating habits.
You need to get in tune with your emotions, distract yourself, feed your feelings without
food, take a break when cravings take a hit, exercise, and get healthier (Emotional Eating:
Unstuffing Our Faces & Emotions). Some more advice we get from this article is that,
Instead of running from your emotions, learn to face them head on. Allow
yourself to become comfortable with all of your emotions, even the negative ones.
The more comfortable you become with facing emotions, the less likely you are to
try to avoid them with chocolate chip cookies or savory mac and cheese.
In talking to a few different friends, they have told me that keeping track of the things
you are eating and even getting rid of the temping foods has helped them with their emotional
eating. Once they became aware of the things they were eating by tracking it, they consciously
made the effort to throw away the food that tempted them and they filled their time with more
productive things like taking a nice, relaxing bath or even going to the gym to get some of their
stress out through exercise.
There are many things that we can do to cope with our emotions without using food. If
you are hungry, try to consciously figure out if you are physically hungry or if it is just your

emotions crying out to be fed. Itll take time and effort to learn the difference, but learning how
to say no to feeding your emotions will help you break your emotional bond to food.

Annotated Bibliography
Borboa, Michele, MS. "10 Ways to Soothe Yourself without Food." Web log post. She Knows.
N.p., 25 Oct. 2012. Web. 21 Feb. 2016. <http://www.sheknows.com/health-andwellness/articles/974151/10-ways-to-soothe-yourself-without-food>.
In this article, she gives an example of emotional eating. She also gives the reader tips to try to
overcome going to food for comfort when they are emotional. I picked this article because of the
tips she gives to help cope with your emotions without using food.
Daisytrousers, Dare2diva, The Real David Charles, and Nichollsanddimes. "Topic: Binge Eating
as a Coping Mechanism for Anxiety." Beyondblue Support Service. N.p., 8 Oct. 2013.
Web. 21 Feb. 2016. <https://www.beyondblue.org.au/get-support/onlineforums/anxiety/binge-eating-as-a-coping-mechanism-for-anxiety>.
This source is from an online forum. The writer of the topic, daisytrousers, wrote about how they
use food as a way to cope with anxiety. There were a few other people that responded and gave
some good input on the topic that the original writer talked about. Even though its not a
professional talking about it, I like that I was able to find real people talking about this real
problem that we are facing in the world.
"Emotional Eating." KidsHealth - the Web's Most Visited Site about Children's Health. Ed. Mary
L. Gavin. The Nemours Foundation, Sept. 2014. Web. 21 Feb. 2016.
<http://kidshealth.org/en/teens/emotional-eating.html>.
This article puts emotional eating into a more simple form so children can understand the topic a
little better. They explain what emotional eating is, give examples, and it has questions to ask
yourself to see if you can figure out what emotional trigger is causing you to eat to cope with
your emotions. They also give tips on how to break the emotional eating cycle and tell you how
you can get help.
"Emotional Eating: Unstuffing Our Faces & Emotions." World of Psychology. Ed. Donna M.
White. N.p., 27 Sept. 2013. Web. 21 Feb. 2016.
<http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2013/09/27/emotional-eating-unstuffing-ourfaces-emotions/>.

This article tells about the psychological problems with Emotional Eating. It tells the reader
about the difference between physical hunger and emotional hunger. It also gives tips about how
to overcome emotional hunger. The writer talks about how food is a distraction to avoid our
feelings.
Merck & Co., Inc. "Emotional Eating: 5 Tips on How to Stop Emotional Eating." Emotional
Eating: 5 Tips on How to Stop Emotional Eating. Merck & Co., Inc., n.d. Web. 23 Feb.
2016. <http://www.merckengage.com/health-care/emotional-eating-what-it-is-why-itsdangerous-and-how-to-help-stop-it>.
In this article, the writer gives the reader five tips to stop emotional eating. The writer also
mentions that if you need more help than just those tips, you could try going to see a counselor or
therapist, dietitian and nutritionists, as well as a fitness expert.