In turn, childhood overeating, whether it be due to environmental factors or inherited traits or both, may further damage the appestat. Children who overeat become fat. Fat children tend to become fat adults. Childhood is of course not the only time that overeating happens. There are many reasons why adults eat too much even if they ate quite normally as children.
Some people eat too much because they have a psychological or psychiatric disorder .
Many people who are emotionally disturbed or depressed overeat, probably because they find food comforting. Some people increase their food consumption when they are under stress rather as other people tend to bite their nails. Some people eat food all day long out of sheer boredom. Eating food can become a habit or even an addiction. The outstanding example of this today is that when many people give up smoking they often feel a definite need to replace the habit or addiction of smoking by another - and this is usually eating.