The path to freedom from weight obsession and food cravings.
Are You an Emotional Eater? Take the Test!

Are You an Emotional Eater? Take the Test!

Are you an emotional eater? If so, what are the reasons you eat? Are you mainly soothing negative emotions, or do you eat primary to distract yourself from the real problems in your life? How does being fat affect your view of yourself, and perhaps even serve you?

Take the test and find out! After you’ve completed the test, you’ll get:

  • An interpretation of your own answers.
  • A summary of how others answered, shown separately for men and women.

Men and women both struggle with emotional eating, but they may eat for different reasons – as the summary stats will reveal. (You may have to come back to check the summary stats. The test was just posted so the counts are still low.)

After you take the test, come back here and post a comment saying what you thought of it. Was it informative? Did the interpretation seem right? Were you surprised at the scores of men versus women?

13 Comments

  1. Wow. Surprised to say the least. I came out medium in all areas, including self care. I thought that would be my high area. My high area was was sexual discomfort. This makes me really sad. I thought I had dealt with this….but it is apparently still looming large in my life. I am surprised that my reaction is to be angry with myself.

    I guess I understand better why I gain weight every time I lose. I give lip service to the fact I know that weight is protection against feeling sexual, but I never saw it as really having this big an effect on my life. I am in a loving relationship that was sexual until a about 5 years ago. I definitely have to look at this more deeply.

    avatar Jewlie
  2. > Is there a way to go back and see our results again once we’ve taken the poll but already navigated away from the results page?

    Yes, just click on the link for the poll again (http://normaleating.com/poll.php) and as long as you’re logged in from the same IP address, you’ll see your original test results and the current group results. There also will be a link to take the test again. If you do take it again, your new answers will not be saved. Only the results from the first time you take the test are saved. So you can go to the page to see your original results, then take the test again to see your progress.

    – Sheryl

  3. Thank you!!! I am at a different IP address, which explains why I can’t see my results. From what I remember, I found the results between the men and women very interesting. In particular, the question about “If I could have one wish I would wish to be thin” (I’m paraphrasing). At the time I took it, 100% of the men answered yes and something like 65% of the women answered yes. Granted, about twice as many women as men had taken the quiz, so… maybe that’s why. But still, very interesting.
    Very cool stuff, Sheryl.

    avatar Octopus
  4. At of this moment, 56 women have taken the test, and only 6 men. So the percents for men are not yet stable. (I hope more men answer.) Re the question, “If I could have one wish, it would be to lose weight and be slim”… 45% of women answer true, and 33% of men.

    I thought it was interesting that more women report having a good sex life – 41% of women, 17% of men. But again, the percents for men could change quite a bit as more men take the test.

    – Sheryl

  5. Wow. I came out low in all areas except for Emotional Eating, where I was medium. I’ve been in the NE forum since August 2008 and the quiz was a great benchmark of how much progress I’ve made. I’m fairly sure that, had I taken the quiz before joining NE, I would have been a ‘high’ in almost every category.

    avatar Fee
  6. it was interesting. I didn’t see a huge difference between men and women except that maybe women are a bit more of emotional eaters than men.

    i came out high in emotional eating and Desiring to be Slim, medium in self care and sexual discomfort and low in the self-esteem category.

    i am not surprised that i am highest in emotional eating and desiring to be slim. I was a bit surprised that i did best in the self-esteem category, pleasantly surprised. Oh..and i thought for sure the self-care would be high.

    so i dont know what to make of the test.

    avatar karen
  7. Hello! I’m not a member of the forum, but I did just receive a copy of the NE book, and I took this test. As I suspected, I am NOT an emotional eater. I actually scored “low” on that and medium on everything else except for my desperate desire to be thin, that was high. I have never used food as an escape, so to speak, nor for comfort. and yet, i have been a binger/purger for many many years. And I don’t know why. And I assume without some professional help, I’ll never find out why. All I know is I LOVE the taste of food. tasting food is very pleasurable for me. SO much so that most of the time I over eat, then feel guilty, then purge. I just want to eat like normal people eat. I just don’t know how to do that. Sorry so wordy, just wanted to share that “I” too took the test.

    avatar melissa
  8. I am very impressed at how incisive the questions are.
    Not generic, but getting to the heart of much of (my) compulsive/emotional eating. The question “Do you like to be touched”, and other queries into how my obese body “protects” me, went right to the quick.
    Thanks, Cheryl. I like your approach, and I see possibilities of healing, thank goodness.

    avatar LeslieRobin
  9. I scored high in everything except the Negative self image section – medium. I think that was mainly because several months ago i put the scales in a high cupboard so that it was difficult to just jump on them several times a day. i was driving myself mad.

    Iam now seriouslt thinking of going to Marks and Spencer and getting some pretty clothes that fit – I realise I look like a tramp (English – scruffy) a lot of the time.

    I see I have so much work to do – I hope and pray I do resolve this because I know I cannot carry on like this

    avatar Jacqui

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