New research finds that eating and especially overeating in response to negative emotions is a risk factor for binge eating and developing eating disorders such as bulimia.
Eating can serve different functions such as survival, pleasure, comfort, as well as a response to stress. Emotional overeating — eating past the point of feeling full — in response to negative emotions may be dysfunctional. “Even at a healthy BMI, emotional overeating can be a problem,” said doctoral student Rebekka Schnepper of the University of Salzburg in Austria.
Schnepper co-authored the recent study in the journal Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience. The study investigated the extent to which individual eating styles and emotional states predict appetite response
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