The concept that emotions induce eating in obese individuals has received
greatest attention in psychosomatic models of obesity. The last major review
on this subject was done in 1957 by Kaplan and Kapian. They conciuded that
"the ultimate cause of the great majority of cases of obesity is psychologically
determined hyperphagia" (p. 199). Their anxiety-reduction model proposed
that overeating by obese individuals reduces anxiety and that this is responsible
for the development and maintenance of the hyperphagia believed to cause
obesity. The concept that emotion strongly influences eating, hereafter referred
to as "emotional eating," has generated considerable interest in clinical and
experimental studies.
The purpose of this paper is to review the post-1957 literature on the relationship
between emotion and eating in adult obesity. This literature can be
divided between the clinical and other nonlaboratory studies and the studies
that use laboratory procedures. Most of the nonlaboratory studies have used