Emotional eating is a normal human behaviour. Unfortunately, emotional eating has been villainized by diet culture. We are taught that emotional eating is due to personal failure and lack of discipline…and for many, this leads to dieting to regain a sense of control. However, as we know (and as you probably have experienced) dieting only exacerbates the feelings of losing control and is ultimately harmful to your relationship with food and your body.
At The Balanced Practice, we believe that emotional eating is normal. Starting from a young age, food is associated with a multitude of emotions (not just the “negative” emotions) and eating is an emotionally loaded experience. Think of how we use food as a way to celebrate, form bonds with others, and connect to family and cultural traditions.
There are times where emotional eating can become maladaptive and potentially create more friction in your life. Emotional eating can become problematic under 2 conditions:
In these 2 instances, we start exploring. We do not shame or judge ourselves for how food has been playing a role in our life, but instead we seek to understand.
At The Balanced Practice, we use a shame-free approach to support you in understanding your emotional eating patterns. We believe that we can repair our relationship with emotional eating, food, and our body.
Our providers at The Balanced Practice are here to support you in developing a healthy relationship with food while learning how to meet your emotional needs too.
Interested in working with a TBP provider on emotional eating? Call The Balanced Practice at (613) 695-0306 to set up an appointment today!
If you prefer to learn at your own pace and have the tools to support you, The Balanced Practice offers a course on emotional eating. Register here.
We offer different services in order to meet you exactly where you are at and provide you with the most appropriate level of support to reach your goals (no one-size-fits-all here). Our team works closely together and with other healthcare professionals to make sure we can provide you with the very best care.
Here at The Balanced Practice, we get it. We believe that you deserve more joy, more connection, and more fulfillment. After all, life is meant to be experienced fully (and not spent feeling stuck in our own heads). And we want to help, our team is available during the day and into the evening!
