New Study Investigates And Proves That Stress Will Make You Eat Food That is Bad For You

It is common knowledge that stress can make people do some strange things. High stress makes people more impulsive, particularly when it comes to stress release. For many people, this means eating certain types of “comfort foods.”

A new study, then, looks at the effect stress has on diets and has determined that, sure enough, people in general are more likely to choose fatty, sweet, and salty foods over healthy options when they are under high stress.

“We find that stress increases reward signaling and thus may boost a craving for getting the instantaneously rewarding option,” explains lead author Silvia U. Maier at the University of Zurich, linking this study with earlier ones looking at how stress affects decision circuits in the brain.

Maier goes on to say, “The more stressed you feel, the less likely you become to override your own taste preferences when we present you with a really tricky challenge, say: your favorite chocolate bar versus a portion of broccoli. You could say it’s almost like stress is turning up the dial on signals about taste, and turning down the signal on health goals.”

Furthermore, University College London neuropsychology expert Molly Crocket notes, “What’s exciting about this work is that it identifies specific mechanisms for how stress affects self control: by amplifying the influence of short-term rewards on choices, and by impairing the influence of a brain region known to be important for self-control.”

She continues, “When you’re faced with an unhealthy food that’s not very tempting, stress won’t affect your self control much, But when you’re faced with your most favorite tempting foods, stress will make it more difficult to resist those temptations.”

Published On: Thu, Aug 6th, 2015

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