Understanding Emotional Overeating: Signs, Diagnosis & Recovery

Emotional overeating is a disorder that can take over your life and cause serious health problems. Diagnose overeating and quit the cycle to improve your health.

Instructions

• 1

  Ask the right questions to evaluate whether you're an emotional overeater. Do you over eat when stressed, lonely, unhappy, bored or feeling inadequate? In short, do you use food to distract yourself from life?

• 2

  Look for cycles in over-eating and then obsessive dieting. Emotional overeating occurs when food becomes a means to regulate your life. If you can see a pattern in your moods and your eating and dieting cycles, you can pinpoint the triggers of your overeating.

• 3

  Search for patterns of depression and poor eating habits. Look for a link to the mood and emotional overeating. Note any fast eating, eating mass quantities of food at one sitting, hiding food from others and eating until you reach an uncomfortable state. These all are symptoms of emotional overeating.

• 4

  Study your state of mind when a binge eating compulsion hits. Do you feel guilt, anxiety, depression or loss of control? Emotional overeating normally occurs when a person feels out of control, and the cycles of binge eating and then restrictive dieting become a means for regaining control.

• 5

  Write down all of the symptoms of the disease. If signs of overeating are linked to an emotional state, seek professional help. To diagnose emotional overeating, it helps to get a professional opinion.