The L.A. Daily News – LeeAnn Weintraub
“Emotional eating — the habit of eating to cope with stress, boredom or negative feelings rather than to satisfy true hunger — is a behavior that can often lead to overeating and weight gain. The feeding styles of parents and other caregivers play a significant role in the relationship young children develop with eating. Emotional feeding or the giving of food or beverages to children to help soothe or calm them down can encourage emotional eating in children. A recent study published in the journal Child Development found that children fed food for comfort at ages 4 and 6 were more likely to show signs of emotional eating at ages 8 and 10. This suggests that emotional eating is a learned behavior and not necessarily due to the common perception that emotional eating is caused by a lack of self-discipline.”(more)