The Facts About Emotional Eating  Want to have your cake and eat
it, too? What you don't know about emotional eating-why we're
wired to do it and why (sometimes) it's not such a bad thing. By
Alice Oglethorpe and Noelle Howey, additional reporting by Julia
Edelstein  Geof Kern"I have made a lot of mistakes falling in
love, and regretted most of them, but never the potatoes that
went with them," wrote Nora Ephron in Heartburn. If only most of
us were so philosophical about the way we eat when we're in the
throes of a powerful emotion. Unfortunately, after we celebrate
our promotion with champagne and cupcakes or drown our romantic
woes in a bowl of spaghetti, we tend to feel remorseful. "I
indulged myself," we might confess, in a hushed tone, to a
friend the next day. (Even our choice of word-indulge-is loaded,
as it implies we are engaging in a vaguely illicit behavior.)
But is this self-flagellation really necessary? Some experts say
no. "It's healthy to emotionally eat once in a while-to eat for
comfort, to