overeating

Scientists have proved the link between stress, sweets and emotions – and the impact that can have (pic courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net/rakratchada torsap)

If you find yourself reaching for the biscuit tin, searching in the treats cupboard, or raiding the kiddies’ sweetie stash when you come home from work feeling stressed – and need to find an antidote that calms you down, quickly! – it will come as little surprise that researchers have found that eating sugar is one of the best stress relievers around.

You can read on ‘Women’s Doctor’ that sweets relieve stress – but you can of course try to substitute sugar for healthier alternatives. However, the answer may not be as simple as that. Body fat can have an effect on the way the brain responds to stress and metabolism, according to a University of Florida study.

The research found that: “Stress causes a desire to eat more, which can lead to obesity. And too much extra fat can impair the body’s ability to send a signal to the brain to shut off the stress response.” So, stress isn’t just in the brain after all.

This is a new finding in this field, where stress was generally thought to be an emotional response. Now that the ‘fat to brain pathway’ has been detected, researchers are going to look at those signals that prompt overeating in response to stress, and work out how those links can be recognised and broken – both ways.

Further articles on the link between stress, diet and emotion include:

10 ways your hectic lifestyle could be making you fat: the link and the link with (not) losing weight (from the Daily Mail, explaining some of the science around stress and weight gain, including emotional eating, appetites, cravings, impulses and triggers).
Food and emotion: an academic paper on emotional eating and stress.
Stress and eating: the psychological aspects.
Can managing your stress help you lose weight?

Research shows that stress management can be effective for weight loss. (pic: istockphoto.com/Pogonici)

If you find yourself reaching for the biscuit tin when you’re stressed, or if you consider yourself an ’emotional eater’, then a new study on stress management may be of interest to you.

A researcher from the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture, Food and Environment wanted to test and compare the effectiveness of two interventions that help people lose weight and keep it off. One was an intuitive-eating programme – where people pay attention to their bodies, only eating when they’re hungry, and stopping when they’re full. The other was a stress management intervention, which taught people better ways of dealing with their stress.

Associate professor Kelly Webber says: “With weight loss we know that if you count calories and exercise you will lose weight. However a large percentage of people tend to regain that weight. “I wanted to explore a couple of new avenues for producing lasting weight loss.”

The study involved 26 participants split into an intuitive eating group and a stress management group, meeting for 75 minutes twice a week for seven weeks. People in the stress management group lost 17 pounds and saw a significant drop in their blood pressure during that period. People in the intuitive eating group did not lose a significant amount of weight or see a decline in blood pressure. The stress management group had kept the weight off 14 weeks later.

Ms Webber says: “So many people in my weight loss studies say ‘I’m a stress eater or I’m an emotional eater’. This stress management-based intervention seems to be getting at the root of the problem.” She says she is “encouraged” by the results and plans to explore them in further studies.

The link between stress and eating is an interesting one. To start exploring for yourself how you respond to stress, start keeping a food journal, noting down what you eat and when – and paying attention to the triggers that prompt you to reach for comfort food.