Happy-Eaters?

Before you judge a friend for reaching for the nearest biscuit after stressful situations, you might want to see what your friend does in other scenarios. Psychological Science recently published a study that found that those who snack in times of stress eat less after positive experiences – and those that are not stress-eaters consume more when times are good.

The study, conducted by researchers from the University of Konstanz, compared the amount of ice cream consumed by volunteers after positive and negative scenarios of what they were told to be “first impressions.” Volunteers were introduced to a potential partner by videos they created, and were either told that the person did or did not want to meet them after having seen the video. Those from the control group were told that the follow-up meeting could not occur due to other reasons. The volunteers were then given three flavors of ice cream in an allegedly different study on taste testing. In the situation where volunteers received negative responses, self-identified stress eaters consumed more ice cream than self-identified non-stress eaters: about 120 calories more on average. However, these stress-eaters consumed about an average of 74 calories less than the self-professed non-stress eaters after situations of positive feedback.

So the next time you see a friend nervously munching under stress, remember that eating habits are dynamic. Everyone responds to negative situations in different ways that may make up for themselves in other, positive situations, and effects on weight gain should be evaluated in an overall context rather than in isolated times of stress.

More information at: http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/releases/stress-eaters-may-compensate-by-eating-less-when-times-are-good.html