Emotional Eating Worksheets

What is emotional eating?

Emotional eating is a behavior in which food consumption is used to cope with intense feelings rather than just to satisfy physical hunger. It often involves consuming food to deal with feelings like stress, boredom, sadness, or loneliness and may involve overeating, undereating, or eating particular foods.

Emotional eating may present as eating comfort foods in response to negative emotions or even in response to positive ones, like celebrating with food during happy occasions. While consuming comfort foods in moderation may be an adaptive coping strategy, repetitive emotional eating may significantly impact physical and mental health over time.

The cortisol spike associated with emotional distress can trigger 'emotional hunger,' where food cravings occur even if the individual is not physically hungry. Emotional eating patterns are sometimes learned in childhood, especially if food is used to reward, punish, or soothe children.

In some cases, eating in response to emotions can become a deeply ingrained habit, where reaching for food becomes an automatic response to certain emotional cues. Conditions like depression, anxiety, and other mood disorders can influence eating behaviors, often leading to ongoing, self-perpetuating emotional eating habits.

• Binge eating: Eating large amounts of food quickly, often without being hungry.
• Stress eating: Consuming food in response to stress or anxiety.
• Mindful eating: The practice of being fully aware and present while eating, paying attention to the eating experience and the body's cues.
• Intuitive eating: A philosophy of eating that makes you the expert of your body and its hunger signals.

Dietitians, therapists, or clinical psychologists may help individuals understand their emotional eating patterns. Addressing emotional eating typically involves learning to differentiate between emotional and physical hunger, developing a healthy relationship with food, managing stress, practicing self-compassion, and finding healthier coping strategies.

How to use our Emotional Eating Worksheets

Effectively using our comprehensive worksheet involves a step-by-step approach to self-reflection and habit change regarding your client's relationship with food. Here's a guide on how to use this worksheet:

Step 1: Access the template

You can download our Emotional Eating Worksheets by clicking "Use template" or "Download" on this page or via the Carepatron app. Before the session, read each section to familiarize yourself with the reflection activities.

Step 2: Reflection

Spend time with your client to discuss their eating habits, emotional triggers, and responses. Encourage them to write down their responses and reflections in the designated sections.

Step 3: Identify triggers and plan strategies

Next, work with your client to consider practical solutions and changes they can implement. Instruct them to write down some potential coping skills or strategies for intense emotions other than emotional eating. These may include ways to reduce emotional eating triggers, seek support, find other ways to manage feelings, use mindful eating techniques, and implement healthy lifestyle habits.

Step 4: Implement strategies

Support the client in implementing the identified strategies. These may include keeping an emotional eating diary or workbook or practicing pausing before acting on cravings.

The emotional eating cycle

This is how the cycle of emotional eating works:

1. Emotional trigger

This emotion—stress, sadness, boredom, loneliness, or even happiness—prompts a desire to eat. These triggers are often related to underlying issues like anxiety, depression, or other emotional distress. Importantly, this precipitates eating that does not satisfy physical hunger.

2. Food craving

The emotional trigger leads to cravings for certain types of food, often comfort foods high in sugar, fat, or carbohydrates. These foods are usually associated with pleasure, relief, or nostalgia.

3. Eating to suppress emotions

Food is used as a coping mechanism instead of dealing with the underlying emotion. During this stage, eating is not about satisfying physical hunger but rather about attempting to manage or numb emotional discomfort.

4. Temporary relief

Initially, eating may provide a distraction or a sense of comfort, offering temporary relief from distressing emotions.

5. Guilt and shame

After the act of eating, feelings of guilt, shame, or self-blame often emerge, especially if the person is concerned about weight gain or breaking dietary rules. This stage is particularly pronounced in individuals with body image issues or those who are trying to lose weight.

6. Reinforcement of the cycle

These negative feelings can, in turn, become new emotional triggers, leading to continued emotional eating. This creates a self-perpetuating cycle that can be hard to break.

Breaking the emotional eating cycle involves recognizing these stages, understanding the emotional triggers, and developing healthier coping mechanisms for dealing with emotions. This might include mindfulness, seeking support from mental health professionals, engaging in physical activity, or learning stress-management techniques.

Benefits of using this worksheet

The Emotional Eating Worksheets offer a comprehensive approach to tackling various psychological aspects of eating habits, particularly for those struggling with emotional eating. Here are the key benefits of using this worksheet:

Understanding emotional vs. physical hunger

The worksheet is designed to help patients focus on the distinction between emotional hunger and physiological hunger. This provides a targeted approach to treating emotional eating and binge eating disorders and supports patients in gaining the skill of pausing when cravings hit.

Identifying triggers for emotional eating

This worksheet guides users in recognizing situations and feelings that trigger emotional eating. Triggers are a common aspect of eating disorders, including binge eating disorder. Learning to manage and identify them before emotional eating progresses into an eating disorder can save clients from a lot of long-term harm.

Promoting mindful and intuitive eating

The worksheet is formulated to support your clients' practice of mindful eating, focusing on physical hunger cues instead of emotional cues. It also helps them identify strategies to manage cravings for certain foods, helping to break the unhealthy cycle of emotional eating.