Emotional Eating Affects Nearly Half of People with Overweight and Obesity

Dr. Anupam Biswas, Senior Consultant Endocrinologist, Fortis Hospital Noida.

A study found emotional eating prevalence at 44.9% in overweight and obese populations.

Emotional eating can be defined as the consumption of food in response to emotional signals rather than physiological hunger; it has been linked to obesity and obesity-related cardiometabolic disorders, including diabetes, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia. It has also been associated with depression, anxiety, and disordered eating patterns.

Several theories have been proposed to explain why people eat in response to emotions, including the psychosomatic theory, affect regulation model, escape theory, and restraint theory.

Negative emotions prompt overeating; this leads to guilt or shame, and that guilt drives more comfort eating, which adds weight and starts the cycle again. Despite the behavior's reach, global prevalence data have remained sparse.

To address this gap, researchers reviewed studies on emotional eating prevalence in the context of weight gain, overweight or obesity, and searched databases like CINAHL, EMBASE, PsycINFO, ProQuest, PubMed, Scopus, The Cochrane Library, and Web of Science. Eighteen studies met inclusion criteria, representing 21,237 people combined.

Pooled prevalence came to 44.9%. Heterogeneity between studies was high (I² = 98.7%), attributed to differences in the measurement tools used rather than to geographical region. The authors call for standardized emotional eating measurement tools and further study of sociodemographic factors.

(Reference: Chew HS, Soong RY, Ang WH, Ngooi JW, Park J, Yong JQ, Goh YS. The global prevalence of emotional eating in overweight and obese populations: A systematic review and meta‐analysis. British Journal of Psychology. 2025 May;116(2):484-98.)