Gluttony is an emotional escape, a sign something is eating us.

The line treats overeating not as mere appetite but as a psychological coping mechanism: “gluttony” becomes a way to flee uncomfortable feelings. The reversal in the second clause—something is “eating us”—turns consumption into a metaphor for inner distress (anxiety, guilt, grief, loneliness) that gnaws at a person. De Vries’s epigrammatic style compresses a moral observation into a witty paradox, suggesting that compulsive indulgence often signals unmet emotional needs rather than simple lack of willpower. The quote’s force lies in redirecting attention from the visible behavior (eating) to the hidden cause (what is consuming the self).