It’s a force of habit: influences of emotional eating on indulgent tendencies

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to build upon reward-learning theory and examine the role of indulgent food consumption and habitual eating behaviors as a means of emotional coping. Design/methodology/approach Both qualitative and quantitative methods were enlisted to explore emotional eating and indulgent tendencies. In Phase 1 of this research, participants responded to open-ended questions regarding the drivers of emotional eating. In Phase 2, a theoretically driven model was developed from Phase 1 findings and quantitative data was collected to test it. Findings Phase 1 findings indicate that negative terms such as “stressed” and “distract” were more prevalent in the high emotional coping group as opposed to the low emotional coping group. Building from Phase 1, findings from Phase 2 demonstrate a link between emotional eating and indulgent food consumption, underscoring the impact of habitual behaviors. Specifically, emotional coping frequency fully explains the relationship between emotional eating habits and indulgent eating frequency, while intentions to eat indulgent foods partially mediates the relationship between attitude toward indulgent foods and indulgent food consumption frequency. In addition, intentions to eat indulgent foods partially mediates the relationship between emotional coping frequency and indulgent food consumption frequency. Practical implications Social marketing efforts can be enlisted to de-market fatty foods to individuals prone to engaging in emotional eating. Individuals might also be encouraged to use emotion regulation techniques to help manage negative emotions. Originality/value This research contributes to the existing marketing and consumer well-being literature by exploring the role of habit formation in the development of emotional eating and indulgent food consumption.