Losing weight is one of the most popular yet hard to stick resolution. Emotional eating is one of the contributing factors for the failure of weight loss plan. It is also referred as comfort eating.

Emotional eating is done when a person feels the urge to manage their depression, loneliness, stress, unpleasant feelings and boredom. People consume sweets, fatty foods and high calorie foods.

According to the studies emotional eating is a major contributor in eating excess foods. It is a major contributor in rise in obesity and type 2 diabetes. Hence it is important to recognize the cause of emotions responsible for weight gain.

Understanding emotional hunger –

 Emotional hunger is something that starts suddenly for specific foods and the craving for food does not stop even after the stomach is full. Eating done out of emotions is usually mindlessly and also food is eaten quickly. The focus is on quantity of food eaten rather than quality.

While discussing about emotions behind weight gain, ‘stress’ gains most of the attention. We shall discuss here some of the emotions that may trigger emotional eating and cause weight gain.

Both positive and negative emotions affect weight gain in an individual. The imbalance of hormones is one of the factors that causes emotional eating.

Given below are some of the emotions that causes weight gain –

Anxiety

When you are anxious it is easy for you to grab those high calorie foods. It is not possible to run from the thoughts or fight them. Thus, you eat foods to comfort yourself. Anxiety can occur at any time and it becomes difficult to control it.

Loneliness

Those who feel lonely are sensitive towards emotional eating. One may feel lonely even if they are surrounded with people around. There is always a tendency to move towards comforting when you feel isolated. Loneliness triggers a hormone named ghrelin which increases the appetite and you feel the urge to eat more.

Stress

Stress triggers the stored fats by increasing the stress hormones named adrenaline and cortisol. The high level of stress hormones leads to weight gain especially around the abdomen.

Boredom

It can be a gateway for emotional eating. We all have come across a situation when we eat out of boredom. When a person feels restless while doing nothing or you are sitting idle, you grab food to entertain yourself.

Happy

It is common to celebrate happiness with varieties of foods. We reward ourselves with foods and as a result often make unhealthy food choices. Also, the amount of food consumed is more than what the body needs.

Conclusion

These emotions are a real culprit in weight gain. We advise you to indulge into positive activities or take professional help to change your state of emotions. Be active, keep moving and doing what you love can help you overcome the emotions and hence prevent over-eating that causes weight gain.