Post-Stress Overeating



People do things that help them lower stress and try to forget after a hard day. Sometimes people try to drink their problems away. Others try to eat their bodyweight in ice cream. This type of behavior is a fairly common coping mechanism in both fiction and Real Life. This usually takes place after a fight with a loved one or some other type of high level emotional distress, usually while lamenting about who or what is bothering them.

Compare Heartbreak and Ice Cream, Comfort Food and the alcoholic equivalent Drowning My Sorrows. Many of these characters experience Weight Woe due to this.

Anime & Manga

 * After having a minor squabble with Sae, Hiro of Hidamari Sketch (pictured above) goes on a binge eating tons of food from cake and donuts to curry, always with a "><" on her face and constantly saying things "Stupid Sae"...LesYay? Of course not.
 * Puella Magi Madoka Magica Kyoko goes off on a binge after she loses an argument with Sayaka.
 * Usagi tends to do this in the anime of Sailor Moon, usually after fights with Mamoru. Not so much in the manga.
 * Fresh Precure: After realizing that Miki already has a boyfriend and his hundredth defeat in attempting to ask her out, Yuuki goes on a binge of donuts while crying. As he puts it to the clerk "If it's gonna be like that, I'll just stuff my face. Old man, give'em to me nonstop!".

Animated Films

 * In Shrek 2, this is a Running Gag with Fairy Godmother.

Live Action TV
"Sometimes a ding dong is just a ding dong."
 * Leo Knox from The Finder is this. Before the series he had gained weight after the death of his wife and daughter, but had lost a lot of weight with the help of Walter, but he reaches for junk food when dealing with emotions. This is especially evident in "The Conversation" where the gang is helping a family that reminds Leo of his own family. Leo at first denies that what he is eating is connected to his emotions.


 * In the show Pushing Daisies, Olive "stress-binged" on the pies that Ned "stress-baked".

Real Life

 * A lot of people suffer from this as an outlet for emotional distress, the equivalent for other people that is smoking and or drinking.
 * In clinical terms, frequent use of this behavior as a coping mechanism can be called Binge Eating Disorder or Bulimia Nervosa. Frequent overeating can also satisfy the self-destructive criteria for Borderline Personality Disorder.