The video for this presentation is available on our Youtube channel: https://youtube.com/allceuseducation A continuing education course for this presentation can be found at https://www.allceus.com/member/cart/index/index?c= CEUs for this presentation are available at https://www.allceus.com/member/cart/index/search?q=peace Explore the meaning behind non-hunger eating, and interventions to help clients become more mindful of their eating and choose more helpful tools to cope with distress.

1. Emotional Eating
Making Peace with Food
Presented by: Dr. Dawn-Elise Snipes
Executive Director, AllCEUs
AllCEUs.com Unlimited CEUs and Specialty Certifications $59

2. Objectives
 Define emotional eating
 Explore emotional eating in terms of its beneficial
functions and rewards
 Discuss why restrictive diets do not resolve
emotional eating
 Identify interventions to help emotional eaters

3. What is Emotional Eating
 Eating in response to emotions and feelings other
than hunger.
 Eating AT someone (You made me do this)
 Eating to forget/distract
 Eating to feel better (release serotonin and dopamine)
 Eating out of boredom
 Eating out of habit
 Not all emotional eaters have an eating disorder
 You do not have to “binge” to be an emotional
eater

4. Why is Eating So Soothing
 Eating as an infant often involved closeness and
parental attention (oxytocin)
 Caregiver generally happy during feeding
 Food may be associated with sleep (night time bottle)
 Eating as a toddler
 Exploration and mastery
 Power and control
 Formation of memories around foods
 Unhealthy foods usually reserved for treats or rewards

5. Soothing cont…
 Culturally we associate eating with caring and
celebration
 Low blood sugar an cause feelings of
depression/anxiety which are quelled by food
 Evolution predisposes the human body to crave
high-sugar, high-fat, high-calorie foods for quick
energy and to prepare for famine

6. What is Behind the Craving
 First rule out physical causes
 Low blood sugar (anxiety, irritability, fatigue)
 Lack of sleep (sugar and stimulants)
 Dehydration
 Nutritional Causes
High carbohydrate/starchy foods: Serotonin, endorphins
Chocolate: Magnesium, serotonin
Fatty foods: Omega-3
Soda: Calcium

7. What’s behind…
 Then rule out habits
 Is there a particular time or activity that makes you
crave this food?
 Are there particular times you mimndLESSly eat?
Driving
Television
 Are you going too long between meals then needing a
sugar boost (which leads to a sugar crash…)

8. What’s behind…
 Rule out eating for…
 Comfort
 Escape

9. Increase Motivation
Eating for Whenever I want Eating for Hunger
Benefits Emotional
Mental
Physical
Social
(Alternatives??)
Emotional
Mental
Physical
Social
Drawbacks Emotional
Mental
Physical
Social
Emotional
Mental
Physical
Social
(Alternatives??)

10. Emotional Eating Interventions
 Mindful eating
 Food diary
 When eating…
Use a plate
Sit
Eliminate distractions
Focus on the food
Time Craving
(food, salty,
sweet)
Emotion or
State
Because of

11. EE Interventions cont…
 Try to avoid setting up a binge by
 Restricting certain foods
 Buying a bunch of “comfort foods”
 Going too long without eating
 Initially distract (bath, walk, call a friend,
facebook…)
 Identify the emotions
 If it is depression: Hopeless, helpless
 If it is stress/anxiety/anger: Failure, Rejection, Loss of
control, the unknown

12. General Coping
 Develop alternate ways of coping with distress
 Distract
 Talk it out
 Journal
 Make a pro and con list
 Focus on the positive
 View failures as learning opportunities
 Identify whether it is worth your energy

13. General Coping
 Develop alternate ways of coping with distress
 ABCs: A= _____ C= Emotional Reaction
 Eliminate vulnerabilities
 Be compassionate with yourself
 Urge surf
 Other tools
 Close the kitchen
 Brush your teeth
 Meditate

14. ACT for Emotional Eating
 What am I feeling/thinking
 What is important to me
 Will eating get me closer to what is important to
me
 What other things could I do that would get me
closer to my goals
 Choose to let it go
 Solve the problem
 Change the way you feel/think about the problem

15. Holiday Help
 Choose lower calorie foods
 Keep water or a low calorie beverage in your hand
 Talk
 Stay away from the buffet
 Rehearse refusal skills
 Pay attention to your distress meter.
 Keep an index card with your coping mantra and
two reasons you don’t want to eat.

16. Summary
 Holidays bring out a lot of emotions for people
 Some people struggle with depression, anxiety,
jealousy, grief and anger during this time.
 When constantly bombarded with high-fat, high
carbohydrate foods, people are tempted to eat to
feel
 Calm
 Happier
 Numb

17. Summary
 Emotional eating, like most other escape behaviors
 Never addresses the underlying emotions and their causes
 Often results in physical issues such as weight gain, poor
sleep, reduced energy (sugar crash)
 Some people try to “undo” emotional eating by restricting
other calories which leads to a nutritional deficit and more
cravings
 Emotional eaters need to
 First find a way to stop before they eat
 Second identify the underlying reason for eating
 Address the thoughts and emotions leading to the urges