Recreational or emotional eating are commonly cited explanations for obesity. The belief is that people eat to relieve boredom or to fill some emotional void in life, implying that one ought to replace food with some other activity to bring gratification. The concept is somewhat vague, but Mayo CLinic defines emotional eating as:
Emotional eating is eating as a way to suppress or soothe negative emotions, such as stress, anger, fear, boredom, sadness and loneliness. Major life events or, more commonly, the hassles of daily life can trigger negative emotions that lead to emotional eating and disrupt your weight-loss efforts.
Same for coverage by the media:
For recreational eating to be ‘a thing,’ people would have to eat as the sole form of activity, like eating while staring at a blank wall or daydreaming. I am sure some people do this, but I hardly recall ever eating for the sake of eating. Instead, at least as I have observed, eating complements other activities, such as watching TV or videos on YouTube, or reading a book.
Hence, the claim that people eat out of boredom and should focus on non-eating activities to distract from food, presupposes that these are separable or discrete activities, but eating makes everything else more enjoyable. Why do social events have food? Or food at movie theaters or stadiums? This ‘commonsense’ advice predictably fails because food and socialization are linked.
The act of ‘getting out and doing stuff’ is a process that is also mediated by food. It’s little surprise the largest and most successful of tech companies are famous for generous spreads of cafeteria food and other snacks to boost worker productivity. Otherwise, employees would be staring at their screens unable to focus on anything, or on their phones just idling. I too can relate that food is great for motivation, and without food I find the ‘boring parts’ harder to get through.
Interestingly, although digesting food takes blood away from the brain, the process of eating has stimulative effects like domaine. This produces a ‘locked in’ effect, followed by the characteristic pleasant sleepy feeling hours after eating as the food digests, which is nice when your work is done and you no longer need to concentrate, so you can wind down without the jitters of stimulants. It works perfectly.
In conclusion, it’s not much as if people eat out of boredom, but rather to make everything else in life less boring.