Does Stress Make Us Crave Bad Food?

You've had a terrible week, you're stressed out, sad, angry at the world. If you're like a lot of people, you might turn to food. Hey folks, Laci Green here for Dnews. Emotional eating, or stressed eating, is basically when you to feed a feeling instead of eating to feed your tummy. Everyone will do it at some point or another but it's something that definitely affects some people in more serious ways than others. Common wisdom says that when we're stressed out, we turn to comfort foods, fatty foods, delicious-sweet-salty and not-so-good-for-your-body foods. This week, a new study done at UCLA, is trying to discount that idea. The researchers took 59 MBA students and surveyed them about their eating habits. Then, during midterm exams, they offered them a broad assortment a fine snacks to choose from. Some are on the healthy side like fruit, yogurt and wheat crackers. Others were on the not so healthy side like candy bars, chips and cookies. They found that the snacks students picked were the snack closest to what they usually eat. Health-conscious students picked healthy snacks and those with poor diets picked unhealthy snacks. The lead psychologist on this study, David Neal, claims that when we're stressed out, habits determine our food choices, not craving. But I'm not so sure about that. Something is a little fishy to me here, guys. This claim contradicts all the other research on the topic and it's also worth mentioning that the study was presented at a food technologist conference and isn't a peer-reviewed. So Harvard Medical School claims that when we're stressed out, we do gravitate toward unhealthy foods. Carbs and fat have the effect of activating the reward centers in the brain and inhibiting stress feedback. It's a soft little, "SShh. Here just feel good for a second." And it works. The Journal of Physiology and Behavior found that many people eat more and tend to more caloricly dense foods when they're stressed out. Possibly because of a pesky little hormone called Ghrelin and that's released when you're stressed. This is one of the ways that stress can lead to weight gain. Why it's so hard to lose weight when you're stressed. And it also hints at a relationship between obesity and stress levels. Some scientists have said that America's obesity epidemic is actually a stress epidemic. So no, stress doesn't always lead to emotional eating even in people who are emotional eaters. Some people have the opposite reaction and certainly in the short term, stress can kill an appetite. There is no stranger feeling and looking at a delicious plate a food and being unable to stomach it because you're so worried or nervous about something. This happens because stress at the fight-or-flight nature can cause your hypothalamus produce Corticotropin-releasing hormone, or CRH, which suppresses appetite. It's more in the long term constant stress that leads to overeating and the cravings. So do eating habits play any role in our stressed out food choices? I'm sure they do, but that doesn't mean that stress cravings aren't a thing. Let me know what you guys think down below or on Twitter at @dnews and I'll see you next time.