Emotional Eating: Comfort Food Cravings And Why?

It’s no secret that different occasions call for a variety of distinct foods. I mean, what’s a birthday or wedding without an extravagant cake at the end of it? Who in their right mind would reject the opportunity to have some ice cream at the end of a long work-day? And would Valentines day really be that special without some incredibly rich, mouth-watering chocolate to sweeten the moment?

Similarly to the way we’ve become conditioned to crave certain foods to meet different occasions, we each have preferences for foods to meet the different emotional states we experience.

We call them comfort foods.

Why exactly do we use food to make us feel good, and why is it that we never seem to crave anything healthy when we’re feeling that self-pity and despair that justifies binge eating?

Jordan Troisi, an assistant professor of psychology at Sewanee, The University of the South conducted a study in 2015 that suggests an intimate relationship between food and social ties.¹ She believes that comfort foods quite literally make us feel less lonely when we’re feeling emotionally isolated.

The research brings us to a truly deep insight about each of our subjective relationships to different types of food. Regardless of what we personally like to eat in those moments, we feel the need for external comfort or support, the reason we do it is to fill an emotional void that isn’t being met in our lives. It’s not necessarily always a feeling of isolation that leads to the eating of comfort foods. However, the trigger is almost always an emotional vacancy we want to fill.²

The six most common comfort foods are:

• Pizza
• Chocolate
• Ice cream
• French fries
• Chips
• Soup

Research would explain choosing energy-rich, fatty foods to improve our emotional experience of a moment as a result of an acquired positive association with these unhealthy foods. They trigger the brain’s system of pleasure, which literally makes us feel better – providing us with the comfort we crave. The brain responds similarly to how it would in the case of a drug addict getting his fix.

All this begs the question of whether we can change our existing relationships to healthier foods in a way that will allow them to provide us with the emotional comfort we crave in difficult times?

We should adopt healthier food choices to provide us with comfort by altering the way we naturally associate with them. The way to accomplish that is by simply choosing healthier alternatives in those moments we feel like binge-eating a tub of ice cream or bucket of fries.

The goal is giving your brain more options for what will trigger happiness or comfort in you by creating positive associations with healthier alternatives.

If you can simulate as closely as possible the experience of having the unhealthy food you crave, you will naturally begin to associate positively with the healthier alternatives you’re eating.

Here are some examples you can experiment with:

• Kale chips in replacement of potato chips. Not only do you maintain that sensation of crispy chewing, but you can add some salt and pepper to give it a really flavorful taste.
• Fruits in place of candy or chocolate. You can always satisfy a craving for sweets with fruits. An interesting option is a watermelon with feta cheese to satisfy savory and sweet needs all at once.
• Smoothies instead of ice cream. A lot of the appeal of ice cream comes from the sensory overload of richness in your mouth. Fruit and vegetable smoothies (if properly blended) has a similar effect!

If we sit and think, we can always come up with different replacement foods to try in place of the comfort foods we’re accustomed to. If you’re open to getting creative, it can be really fun!

So the next time you’re feeling sad and start thinking about buying that huge box of cookies, stop and take a moment to reflect rationally on the situation. “How much better will that box of cookies really make me feel beyond the momentary satisfaction I get while eating them? What alternatives can I experiment with that might have a similar effect on the way I’m feeling?”