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Marg, my experience is that some kids lose their appetite and don't eat when they are anxious (like your difficult child 3 and my daughters).  Other kids, like my difficult child 1, eat more when they are anxious and depressed.  For him, it is comforting and soothing.  He frequently binges in the evening when he is feeling particularly low.  It has nothing we as parents did to soothe him as a younger child.  This is a maladaptive coping strategy he discovered on his own.