How to Stop Emotional Eating:
Treatment Options

Emotional eating is when a person uses food as an attempt to control, monitor, and cope with negative feelings or thoughts. Because emotional eating typically results in overeating, it can often lead to poor self-esteem, unwanted weight gain, and obesity. If you recognize emotional eating patterns in yourself and you are interested in learning how to stop emotional eating, you should contact an eating disorder treatment center to learn more about understanding and overcoming emotional eating. The best approach to stop emotional eating will include treatment for the underlying emotional causes and factors related to emotional eating patterns as well as treatment for behavioral issues.

To learn how to stop emotional eating, please contact an eating disorder treatment center today.

Treatment to Help Stop Emotional Eating

If you are asking the question “how do I stop emotional eating?”, you need to first understand that emotional eating is not simply an eating pattern that can stopped with a diet, but that it is related to deeper emotional and mental problems. Emotional eating is caused by an inability to cope with emotional issues and problems. Individuals who experience emotional eating patterns use food as their primary tool for dealing with and regulating emotions.

Therefore, when you receive treatment to stop emotional eating, you will not only need to learn and establish healthy eating patterns and behaviors, but you will also need to address emotional issues. When learning how to stop emotional eating, treatment should include some type of psychotherapy or counseling to help you understand the emotional issues leading to emotional eating. You will then need to develop positive and healthy coping strategies in order to stop emotional eating patterns.

Your primary goals during treatment to stop emotional eating include to:

• Reconnect with the body and with feelings
• Identify the difference between physical and emotional hunger
• Increase your capacity to tolerate feelings
• Encourage healthy coping behaviors for negative emotions and feelings
• Focus on interpersonal relationship problems and learn how to communicate needs and set boundaries with others
• Improve body image
• Learn self-care
• Identify cognitive distortions
• Recognize perfectionism and “all or nothing” thinking
• Recognize recovery as a process filled with ups and downs

Stop Emotional Eating: Get Help Now!

If you would like to learn more about how to stop emotional eating, your next step should be to contact an eating disorder treatment center to learn about the available programs and treatment options. With professional help and counseling, you can stop emotional eating behaviors and overcome emotional eating completely.

In St. Louis, two eating disorder centers that offer emotional eating help for adolescents, teens, and adults include McCallum Place and Webster Wellness Professionals. Please contact either of these eating disorder treatment centers directly to learn about how to stop emotional eating in order to improve your emotional and physical well-being.

• McCallum Place – A St. Louis Eating Disorder Treatment Center: McCallum Place is an eating disorder treatment center in St. Louis offering a variety of eating disorder treatment programs for individuals suffering from emotional eating and other eating disorders. Treatment programs here include residential treatment, partial hospital treatment, and intensive outpatient treatment for serious eating disorders.
• Webster Wellness Professionals – A St. Louis Eating Disorder & Obesity Treatment Center: Webster Wellness Professions is an eating disorder and obesity treatment center offering outpatient treatment to help individuals overcome disordered eating patterns including emotional eating and learn healthy weight loss and weight management behaviors. This treatment center offers a complete approach to wellness by utilizing psychotherapy in order to help individuals learn how to stop emotional eating and to overcome their emotional issues as well as behavioral problems.