According to the eating disorder charity BEAT, 88% of people who have eating problems and weight loss problems have these problems because they have an emotional relationship with food. 85% of people comfort eat because they have a negative body image.
Emotional eaters use food to soothe unhappy feelings and to temporarily solve anger, loneliness and unhappiness, because eating temporarily switches off their negative emotions.
The key emotional states that send you into emotional eating are anger, hurt, loneliness, betrayal, frustration, jealousy, guilt, resentment, shame, helplessness, powerlessness, stress, tiredness, and many others that may be more subtle. But eating will never cure these feelings. It just makes them worse.
A third of women snack in secret and then feel ashamed, guilty, embarrassed and out of control, and those negative feelings just make it a vicious circle that keep the overeating going even though you long to be free of it.
Not only the food you ate as a child, but also your parents’ relationship with food, will affect how you eat. I have so many clients who in hypnosis go back to events that leave them with a belief that says: