Here's a little story for you.
While living with her husband and two children across the country from her extended family, Christy was shocked to receive the devastating news that her sister had passed away.
"It really shook me to the core. I was away from family...trying to cope and make sense of it all," Christy says. In her grief, she began looking for ways to feel closer to her family.
"I made this cherry cheese pie that my sisters and I used to all make for Thanksgiving. [We would] hide in the corner and eat it with just a fork, all of us, because we thought, 'The guys don't appreciate this.' I've had that pie ever since I can remember," she says.
It was through making that pie that Christy felt an assurance of peace and connection to her family for the first time since the news of her sister's death.
"It was such a comfort to me to make that recipe." (LDS Living, December 2021, pgs 59-60)
I read this story and think of countless others like it which illustrate food's emotional power. Contrast that with how villainized "emotional eating" is these days. Here's the reality.
We all have emotions; we all eat. We all have some kind of emotion while we eat.
Friends, we're all emotional eaters - and it's not the major problem it's made out to be!
Think about it. Would you really want to take away the deeply nourishing comfort that cherry cheese pie in the story above gave Christy? That pie gave her connection she wasn't finding in any other way. Her emotional connection to that food provided her with a much-needed emotional connection to her family. You simply cannot convince me there is anything wrong with that. Food is one of many ways we bond with others, and there's always emotion in those bonds.
Also, consider the alternative to emotional eating - emotionless eating. Think about what that would look and feel like: viewing food strictly as a tool for nutrition, all about function, removing joy, enjoyment, comfort, and connection from the equation. I don't know about you, but that's no kind of life I want!
There are times when the mix of emotions and food aren't healthy or nourishing. We can be wise enough to tell the difference, though. Suppose we pay attention and are honest with ourselves; in that case, we know when our eating nourishes us and contributes to a happy, healthy life - physically, mentally, or emotionally - and when it doesn't. Christy's emotional eating of that cherry pie definitely contributed to her well-being.
Can we please just recognize that emotional eating isn't the horrible weakness every person who cares about health needs to fight against? Can we give thoughtful consideration to the fact that we all have emotions, we all eat, and that emotional eating has a place in a healthy, balanced, well-nourished life? We can learn to trust ourselves to discern when our emotional eating contributes to our overall health and when it doesn't, but only if we stop vilifying it in every form.
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