What is emotional eating?

I believe that emotional eating is slightly different from impulse eating. As you said, with impulse eating one sees a food, wants it, and eats it. With emotional eating, a person is sad, but food makes her or him feel better. It is a comfort, so they clean out the refrigerator. Some people will eat only certain foods, but some eat anything and everything. I have never been an emotional eater. I'm more inclined not to eat when I'm upset. However, I would be an impulse eater if I kept a lot of chocolate or that gooey stuff with fruit and nuts in the house. A friend sent a large portion of her dump cake home with me recently. I kept picking at it until it was all gone.

Emotional eating is when you use food to satisfy an emotion you are feeling. If you are bored you fill the boredom with food, if you are sad you eat, if you are happy you eat, if you feel lonely you eat. When you are anxious you eat. When I do this it is usually with chips or ice cream or cookies.