"...Much of this overeating (or, eating calorie dense food) is a way of coping, “treating yourself” and otherwise compensating for nerve wracking situations..."
indeed, agreed! but the quality of the food plays as big a role, since the lower priced stuff is far junkier than the high, as in any other aspect of market economics...with more money, you get better food, as personal experience and social reality show, quite clearly...
anecdotally, when i had even less money than now, and before i married a healthy-diet conscious woman, i was never fat, but always suffered some form or other of gastric acidity , and my digestive system, even in youth , was a mess...weight/fat wasn't a probem becuase of body type and energy expended, but my health was not nearly as good as it became many years later... relatively, at least...
also, bargain eating, as in places where you can go back for seconds, enables you to fill those unmet needs, compensate, etc, but with the worst kinds of fattening, stuffing, waist expanding, mind contracting foods...
it sucks to have little money, but what else is new, and how could that not affect our diet?
rich or poor, it's good to have money.
fs