Trick or treat?

Everyone indulges in emotional eating, whether they realise it or not. But how do you stop the bingeing?

- Dr Siddhant Bhargava

Emotional eating depends on the relationship you developed with food at a young age. It begins at home, though, of course, your friends too influence your food habits later.

If, when you were young, you did something good and were rewarded by a chocolate/treat, then your brain wires itself into thinking that food is a motivator or demotivator. When you get that chocolate, you feel even happier about doing that 'something good'. And that starts the cycle of turning to food when you want to feel happy. In other words, emotional eating.

You also see people binge/emotional eating when they are sad in movies.

Spot the pattern

Now, you reach a point when you eat simply because you feel too strongly about something. There's also science to it: sugar gives you a dopamine kick. And it becomes a pattern.