Emotional eating poses a significant hurdle for many seeking effective weight management. While conventional weight loss strategies often emphasize diet and exercise, they frequently overlook the emotional and psychological underpinnings that drive unhealthy eating behaviors. Emotional eating arises when individuals turn to food as a coping mechanism for emotional distress rather than addressing genuine hunger. Common triggers encompass stress, sadness, anger, and even positive emotions. This pattern can result in the consumption of calorie-dense comfort foods, providing temporary solace but often leading to guilt and further emotional distress.
Understanding Emotional Eating
Emotional eating extends beyond occasional indulgence in comfort food during stressful moments. It represents a deeply personal and intricate response to emotional distress, traumatic memories, and unresolved issues from the past. This behavior often leads to disordered eating patterns, weight gain, and a negative body image, perpetuating a cycle that's challenging to break.
The origins of emotional eating are often rooted in past experiences and unresolved emotional issues. For some, these issues may stem from childhood traumas, such as neglect or bullying, while others may have developed a negative body image or experienced the harmful effects of restrictive dieting. Over time, food becomes a source of comfort, security, or even self-punishment. Emotional barriers can hinder successful dieting, making it difficult for individuals to maintain healthy eating habits.
Obesity is a complex issue linked not only to physical health but also to emotional and psychological factors, including unresolved traumas and past traumas. Emotional eating is often connected to mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, and eating disorders like binge eating disorder, bulimia nervosa, and anorexia nervosa. Traumatic experiences, including sexual abuse and self harm, can contribute to the development of disordered eating. Addressing trauma in children is crucial, as adverse childhood experiences can impact a child’s relationship with food and lead to emotional eating or obesity later in life. Early intervention for children and supporting loved ones in their emotional healing and weight management journey is essential. Integrating eating disorders treatment with EMDR and other therapies provides a comprehensive approach.
The Role of Negative Beliefs
Negative beliefs play a significant role in hindering weight loss efforts. These beliefs, often stemming from past events, can sabotage attempts to adopt healthier habits. They can manifest as thoughts like, "You’re too fat," "You can’t do it," or "I’m not good enough," undermining motivation and leading to self-defeating behaviors.
Read also: Estrogen's Impact on Weight Management
These negative beliefs go directly against your goal of getting in shape, eating well, losing weight, having more energy, and whatever else your exercise and nutritional goals are, because they go against you becoming your best YOU. We cannot be our best when we feel our worst. It just can’t happen. Negativity is so powerful that it literally changes our brains. Our ability to frame experiences into positive perspectives is directly influenced by previous trauma that we’ve experienced in our lives. There’s changes that occur in the Hippocampus of brain making it easier to see things negatively, and less likely to respond positively - that seems like a no-win situation eh?
EMDR Therapy: A Powerful Tool for Healing
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) therapy offers a promising approach to address the emotional roots of unhealthy eating behaviors, supporting individuals in their journey toward sustainable weight loss. EMDR is a psychotherapy technique originally developed to treat trauma, particularly post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It involves recalling distressing memories while simultaneously engaging in bilateral stimulation, typically through guided eye movements. EMDR therapy has become a widely recognized and effective treatment for a variety of mental health problems such as anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Integrating EMDR therapy into eating disorders treatment can lead to improved emotional regulation, healthier body image, and a greater sense of well-being. This provides a pathway to both physical and emotional well-being.
How EMDR Works
The EMDR therapy approach to weight loss is centered on addressing the emotional and psychological factors that contribute to overeating and weight gain. Rather than focusing solely on diet and exercise, EMDR therapy helps individuals process traumatic memories and reduce emotional distress that may be at the root of unhealthy eating patterns. Through the EMDR process, which involves bilateral stimulation such as eye movement or tapping, the brain is guided to reprocess and integrate difficult experiences. This can lead to improved emotional regulation, higher self-esteem, and a more positive body image-all of which are essential for successful weight loss and long-term weight management.
In the context of emotional eating, EMDR can be used to identify and reprocess the traumatic or distressing experiences that contribute to an unhealthy relationship with food. Ego states are the different parts of our personality that can be shaped by past trauma and emotional distress. These internal states often influence our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, sometimes leading to emotional eating or other disordered eating patterns. EMDR therapy helps individuals identify and work with these ego states, allowing for greater self-awareness and self-acceptance. By using the EMDR protocol to address the negative emotions and traumatic stress held within these ego states, clients can move toward a positive treatment goal and experience emotional healing. This approach is especially beneficial for those dealing with complex PTSD, anorexia nervosa, or bulimia nervosa, as it supports emotional regulation and helps integrate fragmented parts of the self.
Read also: Dietary Strategies for Adenomyosis Relief
EMDR therapy helps our brain to process the traumatic memory that has the stress response and triggers associated with it and allows for natural healing to occur. The fight-or-flight response is essentially removed from the memory, yet the memory is retained. The memory of the trauma seems to be reconsolidated in such a way that it no longer causes severe distress when later recalled. The process involves an EMDR therapist leading a patient through a series of bilateral (side-to-side) eye movements as they recall traumatic or triggering experiences in small segments until the painful memories no longer cause distress.
Key Phases of EMDR
In the early phases of EMDR, establishing safety, stabilization, and resource development is essential before processing traumatic memories. The standard emdr protocol is then applied to relevant trauma memories to ensure a systematic and effective approach.
Example of EMDR in Practice
Perhaps a woman eats when she feels she is not good enough. The earliest image she can recall of “not feeling good enough” occurred when she attempted to earn the affections of her father through performing well in sports. She always felt that she fell short of his expectations, and would cope with not feeling good enough by eating. This behavior had been in place nearly her entire life and often times feels “not good enough” around her husband. Through emdr processing, the therapist helps the client reprocess traumatic memories and reduce their emotional charge. Through reprocessing the painful image of her father’s discontent, by bilaterally stimulating the brain through the EMDR process, those images of “not feeling good enough” will have less of an emotional charge. Therefore, when her “not feeling good enough” button gets triggered, she will not experience an emotional charge that seems so overwhelming she can only handle it through eating. At this time, she will be able to face and handle her emotions when she is triggered in a more skillful manner.
Benefits of EMDR Therapy
EMDR therapy offers a wide range of benefits for individuals seeking weight loss and improved mental health. By targeting the emotional and psychological factors behind overeating and weight gain, EMDR therapy helps reduce emotional distress, improve self-esteem, and foster a more positive body image. Working with an EMDR therapist, clients can develop healthier eating behaviors, enhance emotional regulation, and create a treatment plan tailored to their unique needs. This holistic approach not only supports weight loss and weight management but also promotes overall well-being and a healthier relationship with food.
Research and Evidence Supporting EMDR
EMDR was first developed by a psychologist named Francine Shapiro in the 1980s. She conducted a study focused on 22 subjects who had suffered some form of trauma. After undergoing an initial EMDR therapy session plus follow-ups at 1 and 3 months out, the study showed that EMDR successfully “desensitized” patients’ traumatic memories and “dramatically altered their cognitive understanding” of the situation. Additionally, they experienced behavioral changes, which included being freed of their primary complaints of intrusive thoughts, flashbacks, interrupted sleep, low self-esteem, and relationship issues.
Read also: Nutritional Benefits of Chlorella
There are several forms of trauma: Nonviolent (emotional) trauma, adverse childhood events, and post-traumatic stress disorder. PTSD is the #1 condition EMDR was developed to help. For example, a 2018 review of EMDR used to resolve PTSD examined a total of 2 meta-analyses and 4 randomized-controlled trials. The review concluded that EMDR therapy showed an improved diagnosis of PTSD and reduced its symptoms. It also helped reduce other trauma-related symptoms. An earlier 2014 review of 24 randomized controlled studies suggested benefits from EMDR therapy for emotional trauma and adverse life events. A Kaiser Permanente study involving 67 individuals with trauma assigned participants to either standard care treatment or EMDR.
Because EMDR has been proven to reduce rumination in patients with traumatic grief, researchers are now exploring it as a therapy to help those who suffer from major depressive disorder. More recently, research published in 2018 examined eight subjects with depression undergoing EMDR. Of the eight people engaged with the treatment, seven of them had shown “clinically significant and statistically reliable” improvement on the Hamilton Rating Scale for depression.
Eating disorders have proven difficult to treat through conventional methods. In one clinical case study, EMDR therapy played a critical role in the recovery of unremitting anorexia nervosa in a 17-year-old inpatient, helping her to return to a normal weight that was maintained at 12 and 24 months post-treatment. Another case report that examined EMDR and emotional eating found that the participant experienced an overall positive change in eating behavior. It also stated that EMDR might help to reduce weight over time and to improve results in maintaining weight after weight loss.
A case study followed 4 individuals suffering from both PTSD and substance abuse issues who underwent EMDR.
In a review study titled “EMDR: Beyond PTSD” researchers claim that solid evidence shows that traumatic events can contribute to the onset of psychiatric disorders and can worsen their prognosis. The review concluded that the available evidence shows that EMDR therapy improves trauma-associated symptoms in patients with comorbid psychiatric conditions.
EMDR practice, with its specialized protocols for eating disorders, is supported by evidence such as single case study reports.
Integrating EMDR into Therapy
Therapists interested in incorporating EMDR into their work with clients struggling with emotional eating should approach the issue with sensitivity and care. It can be beneficial to begin by educating clients about the connection between trauma and emotional eating and how EMDR can help. As with any therapeutic approach, it is essential to tailor EMDR to the individual needs of each client. Some may benefit from focusing on past traumas, while others may need to address current stressors or future anxieties.
The Importance of Addressing Trauma
A traumatic event or series of events triggers the body’s fight-or-flight stress response, which is designed to increase our chances of survival. However, with trauma, the brain doesn’t process the event(s) properly, and it fails to file the memory as a past event. The stress response stays engaged, and the brain stays alert to danger, even when it is safe.
A Comprehensive Approach to Eating Disorders
Eating disorders affect a person’s relationship to food and eating behaviors. There are many components to the development of eating disorders, including psychological trauma, emotional distress, feeling unsafe in an environment, messages regarding physical appearance from society and culture, and genetic makeup.
Clients with eating disorders often present with malnourished brains and bodies and a disconnected experience from themselves and their bodies. This can slow healing. They can carry complex trauma and attachment injuries, ongoing systemic oppression, and shame and suffer from weight stigma. Individuals with eating disorders can present with highly defended systems and dissociation. While seeking recovery, they must also engage in a world (and sometimes in a family and friend system) that continues to be consumed with the thin ideal, diet mentality, weight stigma, and fat oppression. Clients with eating disorders present in various ways and all sizes of bodies. Clinicians can benefit from creating a safe, body-inclusive environment. Modeling curiosity and continually assessing and asking questions, allowing time and space for disclosure. I encourage all to continually notice our biases, including weight bias, to allow for accurate diagnosis and ethical, respectful, body-affirming care. A safe and affirming experience in the provider’s office can be an early opportunity to resource “I can feel safe when I am safe” and a body-affirming person/experience. I believe it is beneficial to take advantage of the many opportunities to include resource development installation (RDI) in the EMDR treatment process.
A team approach is necessary for ethical and comprehensive care for eating disorders. Regular appts with PCP are recommended due to medical complications related to eating disorder behaviors and diet history. At times, higher care options might be a necessary and appropriate consideration and recommendation. HLC includes intensive outpatient programs (IOP), partial hospitalization programs (PHP), and residential and in-patient programs. The APA has guidelines for levels of care for eating disorders. Many barriers limit and deny access to higher care and comprehensive care. In these cases, we collaborate and creatively find ways to create structure and safety and wrap the individual in care and support. From my perspective, EMDR has often been underutilized in higher-level of care settings in the past. EMDR can be a beneficial modality for individuals in IOP, PHP, and Residential levels of care once the brain and body have had time to restore and experience consistent, respectful nourishment. Advanced training, consultation, and continuing educational opportunities (EMDR and non-EMDR) are necessary to enhance ethical and competent care. Providing comprehensive and collaborative care is vital. Providers are encouraged to do their work and continually address their biases.
Multicultural Considerations
Multicultural considerations present themselves throughout the process. Eating Disorders affect individuals across age, gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, shape, size, faith/religious affiliation, and socioeconomic status. It is important to consider socio/cultural/familial ideals, beliefs, and behaviors related to body, weight, and food when listening to their story. Individuals may experience body ideals held by their culture, their family, and by their communities. They may also experience pressure from the ideals of the dominant group. Familial and cultural beliefs regarding therapy and the family’s involvement in therapy may impact treatment.