The metaphor of ‘emotional eating’ is often used in popular culture to explain the fat body. Since the 1950s, there has been a correlation between emotions and overeating in the psychology of obesity. This chapter traces the origins of the psychosomatic understanding of obesity in mid-twentieth century psychiatry and how this theory was popularized, and adapted by lay-administered dieting communities in postwar America. The durability of the emotional eating narrative reinforces fat stigma and the regulation of the body through a mind-body model.