What Really Drives Emotional Eating?

You Should Know: It’s 3 p.m., and that assignment is due in two hours. Yet somehow you find yourself looking for a snack, even though you aren’t even really hungry. Emotional eating is usually seen as a coping mechanism and research has tied it to higher BMI, with the assumption that the eating comes first. But a new study suggests the connection between weight gain and emotional eating might be more complicated. 

Going Deeper: Researchers followed 7,371 UK adults for about a decade and measured their body fat and eating behaviors. People who started with more body fat tended to report bigger jumps in emotional and uncontrolled eating years later, but early emotional eating didn’t predict later increases in body fat or BMI. One possible explanation involves leptin, a hormone produced by fat tissue that helps regulate hunger and fullness. With more body fat, the brain can become less responsive to leptin’s signals, which may affect appetite.

Takeaway: Learning to manage emotions is still important, but this study suggests your body may play a role in emotional eating, too. The participants were middle-aged and the effects were small, so think of it as an early signal.

Bottom Line: Emotional eating likely has both mental and physical causes, and researchers are still trying to figure out exactly how they connect.