When personal eating habits change as a result of negative emotions, this can give rise to eating disorders and eventually to diseases such as obesity. To date, however, clear findings are lacking as to when and how such eating behavior arises. At the Ladenburg Roundtable “Emotional Eating – Universality and Limits of the Concept,” experts from various disciplines will bring together scientific findings in order to establish improved approaches to treatment.

Nowadays, eating is no longer merely conditioned by hunger. This is a result of the oversupply and rapid availability of tasty, high-calorie foods. People also eat for hedonistic and social reasons or as a reaction to negative emotions – around 78 percent of the population name this last-named factor themselves as a reason for such behavior. But problematic eating can lead to overweight, obesity, and pathological eating disorders.

To establish suitable therapeutic interventions, the exact circumstances that lead to overeating must be scientifically clarified. However, the current state of knowledge is very heterogeneous. Studies show that people can either intensify or reduce their eating as a reaction to negative emotions. In addition, people’s own assessment of their emotional eating often does not match their actual eating behavior in laboratory or everyday studies. This may be because people find it difficult to assess their eating behavior retrospectively and construct a consistent self-evaluation.