New insights highlight urgency of addressing emotional eating as a mental health concern

A recent advice column sheds light on emotional eating as a deeper mental health issue, urging professional help and healthier coping strategies to break the cycle of distress and comfort-seeking through food.

Emotional eating often begins as a way to quiet feelings, but it can quickly become a habit that deepens distress rather than easing it. In Rappler’s advice column, Jeremy Baer and clinical psychologist Margarita Holmes respond to a reader who describes using food to manage loneliness, stress, boredom and even happiness. The column says the reader has already recognised a key truth: diets alone rarely work if the real problem is that food has become a default coping tool.

The response also flags a more urgent concern. The reader’s remark that eating badly might make life end sooner is treated as a warning sign that calls for immediate attention, not simply a discussion of weight or willpower. Baer and Holmes both argue that the issue may be tied to deeper mental health concerns and that professional help could be important, both to assess those concerns and to build healthier ways of responding to emotional pain.

That view is consistent with medical guidance on emotional eating. Healthline, the Cleveland Clinic, Mayo Clinic and Harvard Health all describe it as eating in response to feelings rather than physical hunger, with stress, boredom, fatigue, anxiety and restrictive dieting among the common triggers. These sources note that it can lead to overeating, often involving high-calorie, sugary or fatty foods, and can leave people feeling guilt or shame afterwards. They also stress that recognising triggers is only the first step; lasting change usually depends on replacing food with other coping strategies.

Holmes goes further by linking uncontrolled eating to emotional dysregulation, trauma and nervous system overload, saying that shame alone can keep the cycle going. Her advice is practical: seek therapy, consider journalling or other forms of self-monitoring, and use support when needed. The column also points readers in the Philippines to Bantay Bata Helpline 163, which offers free and confidential help online. For anyone trapped in the same pattern, the message is clear: the goal is not a stricter diet, but a different relationship with food and with difficult feelings.