Health News
2007-02-06
Sad people choose
unhealthy foods
People who feel
sad eat less-healthy comfort foods than when they are
happy, according to a study conducted at Cornell University.
People who feel
sad eat less-healthy comfort foods than when they are
happy, according to a study conducted at Cornell University.
However, when presented with nutritional information,
the sad people curb their eating habits, while happier
people don’t.
Researchers
assigned 38 administrative assistants to watch one of two
films: Sweet Home Alabama or Love Story.
Throughout the films, the assistants were offered hot
buttered popcorn or seedless grapes.
"After the movies
were over and the tears were wiped away, those who had
watched Love Story had eaten 36% more popcorn
than those who had watched the upbeat Sweet Home
Alabama," said Brain Wansink, Cornell professor
and author of Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than
We Think, in a release. “Those watching
Sweet Home Alabama spent much more time popping
grapes as they laughed through the movie than they did
eating popcorn.”
Wansink suspects
that sad people want to "jolt themselves out of the
dumps" with a quick indulgent snack that tastes good and
gives them an immediate "bump of euphoria." Happy
people want to maintain their good moods but also
consider the long-term effects, so they choose more
healthy snacks.
The researchers
also found that sad people who did not receive any
nutritional information about popcorn ate twice as much as
the happy people. When both groups were informed,
however, the happy people ate about the same amount,
but the sad people dramatically stopped, eating less
popcorn than the happy people.
"While each of us
may look for a comfort food when we are either sad or
happy, we are likely to eat more of it when we are sad,"
Wansink concluded. "Those eating in a sad mood would
serve themselves well by checking the nutritional
information of the comfort foods they choose to
indulge themselves with." (The Advocate)
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