Stress Eating Is Apparently Not Real, So Now We Have No Excuse
I’ll always fondly remember my time interning through college as my “treat yo’ self” phase. I was working two unpaid internships and one evening gig in NYC, and I was stressed af.
When I got home from my 9-5, I would stop by the corner bodega and buy chocolate to eat while getting ready for my evening job. When my work ordered pizza, I would eat like three slices and I had at least one glass of red wine every fucking night.
But it was fine, I told myself, because I was just stressed.
Welp, apparently stress eating is a BS excuse, because it doesn’t exist according to a new study.
The study, published in Biological Psychology, argues that when people are really stressed they actually cut down their food intake.
This makes sense, because some people definitely don’t eat when they’re stressed. But the type of people who don’t eat when they’re stressed seem to be the same type of people who can successfully do a juice cleanse or “forget” to eat lunch.
The study surveyed 59 volunteers about their eating habits, then had them document their diet for 10 days, five times a day. Some of the important things that volunteers noted were whether the food was a meal or snack, whether their meal was influenced by time constraints, and whether the food was hunger-driven or taste-driven (did they eat because they were hungry or because that milkshake looked too delicious?).
The researchers found that the more stressed people were, the more likely they were to eat solely for hunger reasons rather than taste reasons, and the less they were likely to eat in general. In fact, the main reason they found for over-eating was being happy (or positive emotions in general).
So basically, instead of stress-eating, people were happy-eating, and we’re all f*cked.
Blaming your obsession with donuts on stress was totally chill, but saying “I’ve gained a little weight because my job makes me so happy” just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
On the other hand, most young people are stressed af between student loans, a sh*tty job market, and the possible election of Trump, so maybe we’ll all be really thin?
Who are we kidding? Whether we’re stressed, happy, sad, or pissed af, there’s no way we’re saying no to a slice of pizza.
