Toward A Unified Understanding of Emotional Eating

Abstract

Emotional eating (EE) describes a pattern of eating in response to unpleasant affective states such as sadness, anxiety, anger, and loneliness. The rise in obesity over the past century has caused a commensurate swell of interest in EE, and the variable has been used extensively in eating and obesity research. Despite its prevalence and widespread use, there continues to be disagreement over how to define EE. To date, a generally accepted conceptual definition of EE is lacking. Definitions within the literature range from a desire to eat in response to negative emotions all the way to excessive food consumption in response to negative emotions. There are important differences between having an urge to eat and consuming an excessive amount of food, yet both are currently considered EE. With this ambiguity, a division in the literature has emerged. EE has become enmeshed in several different theoretical approaches and has developed multiple operational definitions. The lack of uniformity in the choice of constructs and operations across research has hindered cohesiveness of the literature and raised questions about the validity of EE as a whole. One of the most important and overlooked challenges facing the field today is determining a consistent set of standards for conceptualizing and operationalizing EE. The current work aims to begin the process of creating a more unified body of literature by enhancing the empirical understanding of EE using structural equation modeling (SEM). By providing an in-depth view of the function and utility of each component of EE, this research has the potential to influence the shared understanding of EE and promote unity in a divided literature.