The Psychology of Comfort Food & Control | @caroline-cavanagh | The Anxiety Alchemist

8 Oct 2026 · 1 min

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In this brief monologue, Caroline Cavanagh explains the neurological basis for why sweet tastes are associated with feelings of nurture, establishing the origin of the term "comfort food." She then describes how infants learn that they can control what they ingest, illustrated by a personal anecdote of her 10‑month‑old daughter rejecting broccoli and dropping it for the family dog. This early sense of agency leads to a second psychological layer: using food as a means of exerting control over one’s environment and emotions.

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There is a deep neurological link between something sweet in the mouth and feeling nurtured. And the expression comfort food really does stem from that. And often when I explain this, that's the first time that someone went, oh yeah, never thought of it that way. The second thing that then happens with food is people, or babies rather, start to recognize that they can control what they put in their mouth. And I have a lovely memory of a— probably my daughter was about 10 months old— recognizing that she didn't quite like this broccoli thing that I kept putting in front of her. So if she held her hand over the side of the high chair and dropped it, there was a dog sitting underneath that was quite happy to eat it. So she had some level of control, which also caused a reaction with me. So the next psychological layer that builds up is a recognition that you can use food as a source of control.