Given that your little one doesn’t have much control over the food they eat or when they eat it, you may think it unlikely that they have a serious issue with using food as a coping mechanism to deal with tricky emotions, and you would be right. Preschoolers are typically too young to develop emotional eating behaviours as we typically think of them.

However, patterns and habits are often established at a young age and could have an impact as the child gets older, even if the behaviours aren’t yet evident. So, it’s good to have an idea of the measures you can take as a parent or caregiver to prevent emotional eating and ensure healthy eating habits from an early age.

So, what exactly is emotional eating?

Emotional eating is eating in response to negative emotions, such as sadness and anger, to cope with these feelings. Research suggests that toddlers tend to respond to stress by under-eating, but some children are comforted and distracted by eating more to help them cope with difficult feelings.

With this in mind, what can be done to prevent emotional eating in young children?

How can I prevent emotional eating?

The following 4 steps can help you to prevent emotional eating in preschoolers.

Allow your child to experience difficult feelings

Ask yourself if you’ve experienced any difficult emotions recently, if you let yourself embrace and experience them in full, or if you tried to distract yourself from them. We’ve all been there, and most likely not that long ago. So imagine how difficult it must be for a child who doesn’t yet understand that those feelings will pass. Help children to accept and fully feel their emotions by explaining that it is okay to be worried, sad, or angry, that it is entirely normal, and that it will pass.

In this way, you teach them to acknowledge even their complicated emotions, ensuring that they don’t turn towards food by way of distraction, or let their feelings get in the way of eating enough to keep them going.

Provide them with the vocabulary to name bodily sensations

To help them eventually become emotionally articulate, begin by teaching them to connect the dots between physical sensation and words. Do so by encouraging them to describe physical sensations, like feeling tired, sweaty, cold or full.

“I’m feeling very hot in this sun. What about you? Shall we get a glass of water?”

“Do you want to eat any more food or are you feeling full?”

In teaching them to express physical discomfort, they can then learn to verbalise and share their emotions too.

Give them words for more difficult feelings

It’s really tough for children whose language skills haven’t yet developed to express and accept difficult emotions. To help them overcome this, offer names for their emotions when they exhibit obvious signs of upset. You might tell them, “I know you’re feeling angry” or ask “do you feel sad?”

3-year-olds may respond better to this if it’s approached in the third person: “Somebody feels cross! Who’s feeling cross?” By naming their feelings for them, they can begin to do so on their own, then share and receive help where necessary.

Act as a role model

In showing children that it’s entirely normal to feel down sometimes and that we and others can choose to accept it and share our feelings, they will come to better understand and embrace their own emotions rather than avoid them and look for distractions.

For example, “I’m feeling a little bit nervous for my big meeting today, so I’m going to sit for a while, take some deep breaths and then I might talk to my friend Daniel, because sharing always helps.”

Skipping meals yourself also teaches young children that emotions might trump the basic need to eat. Eating together, even if you only eat a few bites yourself, helps model healthy behaviours for them.

How do I prevent emotional eating in my preschooler?

Unii shares how to encourage your child to have a good relationship with food.