W: Some of us try to eat away the blues, nutritionist Joy Bauer is here with some strategies to help get us healthy. Joy, good to see you again.

　　M: Good to see you Jolin.

　　W: So, you know, there’s emotional eating. It really is a problem, isn’t?

　　M: Oh, the emotional eating is when you eat in response to feelings rather than hunger. Stress, anxiety, nervousness, and maybe you’ve had a fight with the spouse, or coworker and you head straight to the fridge. The truth is we all do it occasionally.

　　W: To a certain extent.

　　M: And that’s not necessarily problematic, but if you struggle with your weight, and you are regularly using food as a coping mechanism, it’s like rubbing salts in a wound.

　　W: Right, because you will feel bad, or even worse, after you did it.

　　M: You feel worse, and you probably worse off emotionally than you were, that cause you to eat in the first place.

　　W: A vicious cycle.

　　M: Absolutely. There are some questions we should ask ourselves. That really can help you determine whether you are an emotional eater. First, do you reach for high-calorie food when you feel sorry for yourself? Are high-calorie foods your reward after a difficult day? Do you feel stressed and then put food in your mouth without realizing it.

　　W: Some of us might answer yes to these questions.

　　M: Absolutely, if you answer yes to the majority of these questions, you are an emotional eater. And you should put a huge effort into stopping this behavior , because it is destructive to the psyche.

　　W: Do man and woman go for different kinds of foods when they are looking for comfort?

　　M: It’s a great question, the number one food according to research in terms of comfort food for man and woman alike is ice cream.

　　W: Yes!

　　M: But it’s a vice. Women head straight for the sweets, cookies, chocolates, candies, and men go for the man food, real food, martial food.

　　W:Yes.

　　M:Steak and mass potatoes, big pasta and pizza.

　　W: One of the things you can do to try to help stop this is measure your hunger on a hunger scale. What’s that?

　　M: That’s right. Awareness is huge, you wanna know if you are actually hungry or not, one being ravenous, and five being comfortably full. So before you reach for something, figure out if you are four or five. Avoid eating.

　　W: You say, if you feel like you have to eat something, eat healthy food first.

　　M: This is a great strategy. I call this three food interference. And it has helped thousands of people. Before you get into anything unhealthy, first eat three healthy items. There’ve always got to be in your fridge a bowl of carrots, one apple and container of yoghourt. After those 3 foods, if you still want to continue on, give yourself permission. But nine times out of ten, you are gonna fill up and you are gonna stop.

　　Questions:

　　11. What is emotional eating?