Whenever I am stressed about class or a life situation, I find myself continuously wanting to eat food. I do not know if it is to avoid doing work, to try and make the work I am doing more enjoyable, or to be doing something while working. I researched the science behind stress eating and this what I found out. Researchers have linked weight gain to stress.
In a study with fifty-nine healthy pre-menopausal women from ages 30-45 were recruited for a study testing if stress leads to an increase in food consumption. Women had four days where they went to three-hour lab sessions beginning within the first five days of the follicular stage of their menstrual cycle. The first three sessions were stressful and the fourth was a control session where no stress was involved. Women were told to eat a snack one hour before going to the lab. After the sessions in the lab, they were given a basket of food that contained different kinds of snack, some healthy and some not. After the sessions, the women had to wait an hour in the laboratory and they would read or listen to music. Little did they know that they were being analyzed for how much and what food they ate out of what the researchers gave them.
The researchers found that stressed was related to a greater calorie intake. The women ate more food and sweets after they had a stressful session.
When a person’s stress lingers, the adrenal glands release a hormone called cortisol, which increase appetite and motivate to eat. When people begin to get less stressed, their appetite will begin to fall. Harvard research also shows that women are more likely to eat more food and men are more likely to drink alcohol or smoke when under stress. According to a Harvard article, stress affects the type of food people want to eat. When people are stressed that want food that is high in fat, sugar, or both.
There are third variables that researchers need to take into account. Eating disorders are very common in women and they need to be taken into consideration during these studies. Eating disorders could cause women to binge eat after a stressful period or eat nothing or almost nothing. Weight, age, height, and allergies also need to be taken into consideration when analyzing what women choose to eat and how much. Another important detail to focus on is how much the women ate during the day before going to the lab, did they eat breakfast, lunch, an early dinner, snacks through out the day or do they have plans to eat after the lab session? This is very important when examining what and how much people eat after a lab session.
Stress causes people to lose sleep, exercise less, and drink alcohol more often, which can all contribute to weight gain. I have learned that the best thing to do when stress in college is to go to the library and get work done rather then eating a lot of food that later you regret.
You did a really good job of thinking outside the box and thinking of some reasons why this study might not be the best. I looked around online and this is a very difficult subject, all of the articles i found contained opposing studies some saying that men overeat more, some that say women over eat more. And I think that a lot of these studies suffer from both the file drawer problem and the Texas sharpshooter problem. Most people think that it’s one or the other, so they test in a certain way. Also, I think that when a test doesn’t get the results they were looking for, they don’t post the results. It would be really beneficial for someone to round up a bunch of the studies that have been done on this topic, and just see what the most common consensus is.
I enjoyed reading this blog post because being a female, and being under constant stress in school, I definitely feel like I eat more. I usually tend to go get a snack after I’m done studying. Most often times this snack is unhealthy as well. Although I thought the study you talked about was interesting, I think it would be good to also include not just women on their menstrual cycle, but men as well and women when they’re not menstruating. Here is a helpful article on how to try and avoid stress eating. http://www.helpguide.org/articles/diet-weight-loss/emotional-eating.htm
I think it’s great how you considered third variables that might not have been controlled for in this study. I agree that gender can have a large effect on stress eating and what you eat and its especially important to consider other variables when talking about women and eating. I would be interested if this study was conducted with men and women, rather than just women. I think they should also control for lifestyle factors, such as occupation and socioeconomic background as this could lead to varied levels of stress. Considering finals week is coming up I found this study to be particularly relatable.
Here is a link to a few tips on how to recognize signs of stress eating as opposed to regular hunger and how to combat it for those who may be weak.
http://www.helpguide.org/articles/diet-weight-loss/emotional-eating.htm