Part 4: No unhappiness can't be solved with a hot pot meal.

There's no unhappiness that a hot pot meal can't solve.

If you're unsure whether you have emotional eating, you can count the following seven common emotional eating patterns and see how many you've experienced: First, frequently eating large amounts of food when you're not hungry; second, frequently eating until you're overly full and uncomfortable; third, frequently hiding away to eat in silence; fourth, eating much faster than average; fifth, consuming significantly more food in a short period than average; sixth, frequently experiencing negative emotions after eating, such as anxiety, depression, guilt, or disgust; and seventh, often feeling unable to stop eating.

Emotional eating is often triggered by negative emotions. A common scenario is that when facing stress and anxiety, we easily lose control of our eating habits, leading to a large intake of so-called junk food. For example, if an exam is approaching, or work pressure is high, and you're worried about not completing tasks or achieving good results, you might suddenly order a ton of takeout, or eat boxes and buckets of ice cream, candy, and chocolate, even when you're not hungry, because you can't control yourself and don't want to. Sometimes, after receiving criticism or experiencing upsetting events, our appetite may suddenly increase inexplicably, or we may suddenly crave high-sugar foods. However, although we may get temporary satisfaction, we will feel an overwhelming sense of guilt afterward, and our emotions will be even worse.

How do emotions affect our eating behavior? A psychology research team from the University of Alabama answered this question using experiments with rats. They first subjected the rats to a yo-yo diet-four days of grass followed by six days of sugar water-and then subjected them to electric shocks, subjecting them to intense stress, similar to humans under high emotional stress. They found that the rats that received the electric shocks ate half again as much or more food within two hours compared to those that did not. (Hagan, Chandler, Jarrett, Rybak & Balckburn, 2002) Isn't that interesting? Neurobiologists from Israel conducted a similar experiment. They injected a virus into the brains of pregnant mice, accelerating the secretion of stress hormones, meaning the mice experienced greater stress. The results showed that the offspring of these mice were more prone to overeating during puberty. (Schroeder, et al., 2017) If this is true for mice, how much more so for humans with their incredibly complex emotions?

When facing high pressure, if we can skillfully manage our negative emotions, we won't resort to emotional eating. Only those who don't know how to manage their emotions use emotional eating to cope with stress. Psychologists from the Netherlands conducted three experiments, having participants cope with their negative emotions in different ways: first, suppressing emotions (i.e., repressing or ignoring them); second, re-evaluating emotions (i.e., becoming aware of and examining their emotions); and third, naturally expressing emotions. They then measured whether their eating habits differed under normal circumstances. The results showed that subjects in the emotion-suppressing group consumed large amounts of high-energy foods, but subjects in the re-evaluation group and the natural emotion expression group did not exhibit this behavior. (Evers, Stok & De Ridder, 2010) These findings also apply to Chinese individuals. A research team from Anhui Medical University tracked 4,316 high school students and concluded that suppressing negative emotions, such as ignoring them or pretending nothing is wrong, makes us more prone to emotional eating, leading to obesity. (Lu, Tao, Hou, Zhang & Ren, 2016)

In summary, I hope you can remember these two key points. First, negative emotions can trigger emotional eating through various physiological and psychological mechanisms, resulting in excessive intake of high-calorie foods and leading to obesity. Second, negative emotions themselves do not cause emotional eating; how we manage our negative emotions determines whether we engage in emotional eating.

Since emotional eating is so bad, what should we do? The first challenge is that we often ignore it, meaning we're often unaware that we're emotionally eating. You might be surprised, thinking, "I'm not doing that." But consider this: the reason someone eats emotionally is because they can't be aware of their emotions in time, or can't manage them properly. Emotional eating is actually a form of emotional suppression. Because the subconscious chooses to suppress it, if you don't actively observe it, you'll naturally ignore it, mistakenly believing that your eating is simply due to bodily needs. Therefore, distinguishing between normal eating and emotional eating is crucial.

First, I hope that during each meal, you can take a short minute to pause all your activities and ask yourself these five questions:

(1) Am I hungry or full now? If I am full, how full am I now? This question can help you focus your attention on your stomach and intestines instead of your mouth.

(2) Am I eating at a normal or too fast speed? This question can help you focus your attention on the speed of your hand movements and the speed at which you swallow.

(3) Am I eating alone or with a group of people? If I am eating alone, am I intentionally avoiding others? This can help you focus your attention on your surroundings.

(4) How much control do I have over my eating right now? If I were to stop eating now and stop eating the food on my plate, could I do it? This helps you focus your attention on how you interact with the food in front of you.

(5) After I finish eating the food in front of me, what will I think about myself and what emotions will I have? Will I feel regret, guilt, or remorse? This question helps you focus your attention on the future, not just the present moment.

These five questions can help you break long-standing habits and distinguish whether you are eating normally or emotionally. It's recommended that you write these five questions down and stick them on your dining table or save them on your phone so you can easily recall them each time.

Then, using the ABC model of cognitive-behavioral psychology that we introduced in the previous section, we can observe, record, and summarize: what kind of emotions trigger your emotional eating.

There's no standard answer to this question because everyone's emotional experiences are different, and our emotional sensitivities vary. Some people may be particularly sensitive to stress and anxiety; others may be prone to emotional eating when depressed or sad; and still others may be defenseless against guilt and resentment. Over the next one to two weeks, I hope you can record your eating habits, just like keeping a diary. When you find yourself engaging in emotional eating again, I hope you can record: the triggering event, your cognition, your emotions, and your behavior. After accumulating some data, you will discover which emotions are most likely to lead to emotional eating. According to clinical studies from Belgium and Italy, the five most common negative emotions that trigger binge eating are: boredom, depression, anxiety, tension, and sadness. (Vanderlinden, Grave, Vandereycken & Noorduin, 2001)

Homework

1. Please conduct a self-examination: Of the seven types of emotional eating mentioned above, how many have you experienced?

2. When experiencing negative emotions, how do you deal with them? Do you suppress them, re-evaluate them, or express them naturally?

3. In the coming week, please take one minute during your mealtime to quickly answer the five questions mentioned above using the first technique.

4. In the coming week, please continue to use the ABC record included with this book to record and analyze your emotional eating, and answer the following question: What kind of emotions trigger your emotional eating?