Comfort eating

What is comfort eating?

It is not uncommon for people to eat when they feel sad, angry, hopeless, bored or lonely. Eating may make you feel better in the short term. Some foods, such as chocolate, affect the chemicals in the brain that regulate your mood. For that reason, you often feel better straight after you have eaten chocolate but these effects usually don't last for very long. Eating in response to emotions, particularly if you are not hungry, is known as comfort eating.

Eating your favourite food when something upsets you is OK and everybody is likely to do it from time to time. Comfort eating may be a problem if you are regularly feeling sad, angry, hopeless, bored or lonely and are using food to cope with these feelings. If this is the case, it may be a good idea to talk to someone about your feelings and look at other ways of managing them. If you are eating when you are not hungry and having feelings of guilt after eating it may also be a good idea to talk to someone. This may be your local doctor, a psychologist or dietician. Check out the Who can help you section for more information about how these people can help. The Help Near You section or your local phone book should have the contact details for these people in your local area.

Ideas for managing your eating

If you are concerned about always overeating in response to certain emotions, then there are a number of things you can do to help manage it.

Be aware of what makes you eat

It is helpful to look at your eating patterns and try to work out what is causing you to eat. It may be that you are eating because you are feeling sad or stressed. It is also important to be aware of how often you have these feelings. If it is happening regularly, then you may need to look at other ways of managing these feelings. Keeping a diary about what you eat and how you feel before and after you eat can help you to see what triggers your eating.

Explore other ways for managing feelings

Comfort eating involves eating to help you deal with how you are feeling. It may be that there are things you could do to help you deal with your feelings in a healthier manner. You may like to try exercise, drawing or writing. For more information about how you can safely express yourself, check out the Express yourself fact sheet.

Plan for dealing with boredom

It is not uncommon to eat when you are bored. If you find yourself doing this regularly, you may find it useful to think of some things you can do when you are bored. It may be ringing a friend, kicking a footy, reading a book or going for a walk.

Eating healthy food

If you are using food to cope with your feelings it may be something you have been doing for a long time. This may mean that it will take time to start using other methods to manage your concerns or stress. When you are eating it may be a good idea to try to eat healthy foods most of the time rather than those that are high in fat.

Talk to someone

By talking to your local doctor or a counsellor you should be able to work out some of the reasons why you may be comfort eating and different ways to manage it.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Anne Connolly, who wrote this fact sheet. The information is based on Anne's Psychology Honours research into comfort eating.