When Food Became Comfort: Childhood Trauma, Shame and Our Relationship With Food

Content note: This post discusses childhood abuse, neglect and difficulties with eating.

One of the less talked-about ways people cope with childhood abuse and neglect is through their relationship with food.

I think we need to talk about this more, particularly because, for some people, food was also part of the abuse and neglect they experienced in the first place.

When food was part of the harm

Some children grew up with food scarcity, unpredictable access to meals, or food being withheld as punishment. Others had enough food available but were forced to eat, humiliated for their appetite or weight, criticised about their bodies, or experienced food being used as a means of control.

Having plenty of food in the house does not necessarily mean a child’s relationship with food was safe.

What children need, beyond food

Childhood is a time when we depend on adults for much more than food, shelter and clothing. We also need safety, emotional attunement, protection, soothing, connection, and help making sense of feelings that can be incredibly overwhelming for a developing child.

When those experiences are absent, or when the adults we depend on are themselves causing harm, a child is often left with emotional experiences they have very little capacity to manage alone.

How food can become a way of coping

For some children, food becomes one of the few accessible sources of comfort, relief or escape. Eating may help soothe loneliness, temporarily numb emotional pain, or create distance from feelings that were never acknowledged or supported.

For others, restricting food, controlling when they eat or limiting how much they consume may become connected to attempts to regain a sense of control or safety in circumstances where they have very little power.

These patterns can take many forms, including:

• Binge eating
• Restricting food
• Eating in secret
• Cycling between restriction and overeating
• Becoming disconnected from hunger and fullness cues

For some, eating can become an almost dissociative experience: a way of switching off from overwhelming emotions, memories or distress.

And some people may not recognise any of this as connected to their earlier experiences. Their relationship with food may simply feel like something they have always struggled with.

Then there is shame

Imagine growing up being shamed for having needs, for being hungry, for wanting comfort, for your body, or for how you responded to distress.

Years later, you may find yourself struggling with food and directing that same harshness towards yourself.

Why can’t I control myself? Why do I keep doing this? What’s wrong with me?

The coping response itself becomes another source of shame, often reinforcing the very distress that contributed to it.

The loneliness beneath it

There is something deeply sad about recognising how much loneliness can sit beneath these experiences.

A child who desperately needed comfort, protection, connection and someone to help them regulate overwhelming feelings may have been left to find ways of managing alone.

Sometimes what we later describe as an “unhealthy relationship with food” developed within a much larger history of unmet emotional needs, abuse, powerlessness or profound disconnection.

Why behaviour change alone may not be enough

This is one reason I think we need to be careful about approaching difficulties with food solely through the lens of behaviour, weight, discipline or symptom reduction.

Of course, helping people establish safer eating patterns and addressing the physical and psychological consequences of disordered eating are incredibly important. But where childhood abuse, neglect and shame have contributed to the difficulties, we also need to understand the function these patterns have served, and what remains unresolved beneath them.

Someone may work incredibly hard to change their eating and still carry the loneliness, self-loathing, emotional overwhelm, fear, or beliefs about their worth that developed long before the eating difficulties became apparent.

For some people, meaningful healing involves:

• Exploring these experiences safely and at their own pace
• Developing ways to regulate overwhelming emotions
• Reconnecting with their needs and their body
• Gradually experiencing care and compassion where shame has dominated

That work deserves appropriate support, and it should happen alongside any necessary specialist eating disorder care.

Not every difficulty with food comes from trauma

I want to emphasise that not every difficulty with food is rooted in childhood trauma. Eating disorders and disordered eating are complex, with biological, psychological, social and environmental influences.

But we cannot keep overlooking the experiences of people whose relationship with food developed within histories of harm, neglect and shame.

Approaching your story with compassion

There can be enormous grief in discovering that some of the things you have spent years hating yourself for developed while you were trying to cope with experiences you should never have had to navigate alone.

If this is something you recognise in yourself, I hope you can begin to approach your story with more curiosity and compassion.

You deserved nourishment, safety, comfort and protection. You deserved adults who could help you understand and manage your feelings without shaming you for having them.

Your relationship with food deserves to be understood in the context of your life, and so do you.

If you are struggling

If you are worried about your eating, please speak to your GP, who can refer you for specialist assessment and support. You can also contact Beat, the UK’s eating disorder charity, through its helpline or website (beateatingdisorders.org.uk).

If you are in crisis or feel unsafe, call 999 or go to A&E, call NHS 111 and choose the mental health option, or call Samaritans on 116 123 at any time.

Working with me

I am a Consultant Counselling Psychologist specialising in trauma recovery. If you would like support in understanding how your early experiences may be shaping your relationship with food, your body or yourself, you are welcome to get in touch to book a free telephone consultation.

Book a consultation →

Related reading: Ways Shame Shows Up · When Anxiety Is Really About Shame · When Survival Becomes a Way of Life