1. Unawareness
The first thing is unawareness.
You may not be conscious of what you're eating, why you're eating, or how much you're eating.
If you have never taken the time to stop yourself in front of the fridge and ask if you're really hungry, you likely are unaware of a comfort eating problem.
2. Lack of pleasure
Many women find themselves in a situation where food is one of the few pleasures in their life, so it becomes an easy source of entertainment.
You might turn to food to soothe yourself and help overcome boredom.
3. Inability to control your feelings
From a young age, most of us learned to avoid things that make us feel bad, and food is a great distraction when we are faced with negative emotions.
If you are unable to tolerate the inevitable "bad" feelings of life, you might turn to food to try and get them off your mind.
4. Dislike of your own body
A negative self-image can cause a range of bad habits, but emotional eating is certainly near the top of the list.
If you dislike how you look, it can throw you into a downward spiral of negative emotions and multiple aspects of this can lead you to emotional eating.
5. Physiology
Do let yourself get too hungry?
Do you miss a lot of sleep?
There are lifestyle choices that can make you more vulnerable to emotional eating.
If your body is hungry or tired, it will send a powerful signal to the brain that tells it to eat.
It's much more difficult to fight off cravings and urges when you are hungry or tired already, and it becomes even more difficult to convince yourself to make healthy choices.
