Emotional eating is considered both an eating disorder and a mental illness. Those who suffer from emotional eating face not being able to lose weight as well as many other difficulties. Emotional eating tends to affect mostly women, but men can suffer from emotional eating as well. There are several consequences of emotional eating and all of them have a negative impact on the life of the person suffering from this problem.
A major consequence of emotional eating is that is can lead to the damaging of relationships. Those who suffer from emotional eating also tend to eat when they are under relationship stress. Those with this problem will turn to food instead of talking out their differences with people in which they are in a relationship with such as friends, family members co-workers or significant others. Once they succumb to the habit of emotional eating, they will eat whenever tension occurs in their relationships. This habit prevents emotional eaters from developing good communication skills and prevents a deepening of intimacy. This consequence of emotional eating leads to weight gain, weakened relationships and lost relationships.
Another consequence of emotional eating is neglecting one’s ambitions. When an emotional eater faces hurdles on their way to achieving their ambitions they tend to eat instead of finding ways to jump those hurdles. Instead of pursuing long-term goals, emotional eaters turn to food. When they feel like they are stuck or not being appreciated they eat. This consequence of emotional eating leads to lost dreams, non-fulfilling jobs and weight gain.
Another consequence of emotional eating is not releasing one’s feelings. Those who suffer from emotional eating tend to let their feelings bottle up inside because they eat when things are bad instead of releasing their feelings. They tend to avoid confrontation, anger, sadness and other unpleasant feelings and just eat and eat until things seem better. This consequence of emotional eating leads to weight gain, hopelessness, anger, sadness and depression.
Another consequence of emotional eating is not facing one’s fears. Emotional eaters tend to eat to handle their fears. They use food to cope with fear instead of addressing their fears in a logical and practical manner. This consequence of emotional eating leads to a person’s fears becoming much larger and more frightening than they truly are and weight gain. They will face self-doubt and their fears will grow into to something so big they their fears will seem impossible to address.
The biggest and most prominent consequence of emotional eating is not being able to love yourself. Emotional eaters tend to fall into a sick cycle where they eat and eat and this eating leads to them not being able to love themselves. They will gain weight and beat themselves up for losing control of their eating and their lives. They will often think of themselves as failures and will develop a very negative and toxic self-image. This vicious cycle leads to more emotional eating, more weight gain and more ignoring of one’s ambitions, relationships, feelings and fears. This consequence of emotional eating can lead to depression, anxiety, weight gain, anger, sadness and hopelessness.
