Emotional Eating

Emotional Eating Treatment & Medical Nutrition Therapy in the St. Louis Area, Missouri, and Illinois

Get Strategies to Overcome Emotional Eating with Dietitian Nutritionists in the St. Louis Area, Restore your Relationship with Food and Body

What is emotional eating?

Emotional eating refers to the use of food to cope with or regulate emotions rather than to meet physical hunger needs. It may include behaviors such as guilt-driven eating, frequent food cravings, chronic dieting, eating past physical comfort, eating in response to boredom or emotional distress (including sadness or stress), rigid food rules, eating more quickly than intended, or experiencing a sense of urgency around food.

If you or someone you love is experiencing challenges with eating behaviors or a difficult relationship with food and body, support is available. We provide compassionate, evidence-based nutrition therapy through both online and in-person services. Our approach is designed to help individuals better understand their eating patterns, rebuild trust with their bodies, and develop a more balanced and sustainable relationship with food—supporting long-term well-being and food freedom.

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Is there treatment for emotional eating?

As dietitian nutritionists, we adhere to a HAES® , weight-inclusive framework of nutrition therapy. What can you expect while working with a dietitian from our team?

Individual Therapy: To address the underlying issues contributing to the use of food as a coping mechanism. This may stem from anxiety, stress, depression, trauma, unexpected life events, etc. These things often feel out of control for the individual affected, so they turn to food as a way to suppress the emotions they are experiencing.
Developing Coping Strategies: We will assist in helping you develop coping mechanisms to manage emotions without turning to food.
Creating Balanced Meal Plans: Some patients work better with more structure, so we can develop meal plans that provide all necessary nutrients.
Helping with Mindful and Intuitive Eating: Learning to trust your body is key to healing your relationship with food. We give you mindful eating tools and lead you to intuitive eating practices.
Nutrition Education is the cornerstone of our practice, empowering you to make the best food choices for your wellness.
Monitoring Progress with recovery coaching or follow-up sessions can help you sustain changes, address challenges, and make necessary adjustments to your eating plan.

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What is the theory of stress eating?

The theory is that one turns to food in the face of stress, fear, anxiety, depression, or other emotional feelings. Using food to numb them out to “forget” about a certain incident that made them feel icky inside (think: “My boyfriend broke up with me, so I’m ordering pizza and eating a pint of ice cream in return!”) BUT will the pizza and pint of ice cream make your ex-boyfriend want to get back together with you? Probably not, BUT it pushed the negative feelings associated with it out of the way for a short period of time only for the vicious cycle to continue again.

It’s important to understand everyone enjoys a scoop of ice cream or chocolate every now and again, often with friends, when they need a little boost. This isn’t a problem. The problem arises when there is a failure of emotional regulation. This can lead to maladaptive eating behaviors and “stress eating”. When the “stress eating” becomes the norm, the go-to for tense situations, this becomes problematic.

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Is emotional eating an eating disorder?

It’s not a diagnosable eating disorder in the DSM-5, however if symptoms are not addressed, it can turn into a more serious eating disorder.

It’s important to understand that eating disorders aren’t only about body weight or image. Often, people resort to food consumption or restrictive behaviors as a way to regain control over their lives. This can spiral into an eating disorder.

Here are signs that your “stress eating” might be leading you down a path of disordered eating or eating disorders:

Regular episodes of binge eating. Escalating amounts of food.
Regularly eating beyond the point of fullness.
Eating in secrecy, hiding food for later consumption.
Developing rituals and rules about foods.
Adopting highly restrictive eating behaviors and compensatory behaviors.
Experiencing feelings of shame or guilt after eating

Get help from an experienced professional to access the treatment you need. We want to work with you.

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How to stop emotional eating?

One of the key ways to suppress emotional eating is to work with a multidisciplinary team to address the underlying issues contributing to food being used as a coping mechanism. A dietitian can assist in regulating food intake by assisting with meal and snack ideas and working to decrease underlying behaviors contributing to emotional eating. At Branz Nutrition, we do this through the lens of a Health at Every Size®, intuitive-eating approach.

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Medical Nutrition Therapy Services