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Cookie or clementine? Psychophysiological stress reactivity and recovery after eating healthy and unhealthy comfort foods.

ABSTRACT: Many people eat unhealthy foods that are high in calories, fat, or sugar when feeling stressed, yet little is known about whether this unhealthy comfort eating actually comforts. Additionally, prior research has not tested whether healthy comfort eating of fruits and vegetables might also alleviate stress, or whether comfort eating during the stress anticipation phase versus immediately after a stressful event is more beneficial for stress relief. The present experiment tested whether unhealthy and healthy comfort eating reduce acute psychophysiological responses to a socially evaluative stressor. Participants (N = 150 healthy women) underwent the Trier Social Stress Test in the lab and were randomly assigned to one of five conditions according to a 2 (food type: unhealthy vs. healthy) x 2 (eating timing: during stress anticipation vs. after the stressor) + 1 (no food control) between-subjects design. Stress outcomes included mood, cognitive appraisals, rumination, salivary cortisol, heart rate variability, and pre-ejection period. Unhealthy and healthy comfort eating did not dampen reactivity or enhance recovery of psychophysiological stress compared to control, and no differences in reactivity or recovery were found by comfort food type. Findings suggest that by replacing unhealthy comfort foods with fruits and vegetables, women will not be sacrificing any stress-reducing benefits and can inherently improve the quality of their diet while avoiding potential drawbacks of unhealthy comfort eating (e.g., links with abdominal obesity).

SUBMITTER: Finch LE

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6635016 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Cookie or clementine? Psychophysiological stress reactivity and recovery after eating healthy and unhealthy comfort foods.

Finch Laura E LE Cummings Jenna R JR Tomiyama A Janet AJ

Psychoneuroendocrinology 20190501

Many people eat unhealthy foods that are high in calories, fat, or sugar when feeling stressed, yet little is known about whether this unhealthy comfort eating actually comforts. Additionally, prior research has not tested whether healthy comfort eating of fruits and vegetables might also alleviate stress, or whether comfort eating during the stress anticipation phase versus immediately after a stressful event is more beneficial for stress relief. The present experiment tested whether unhealthy ...[more]

PMID: 31075612

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Project description:BACKGROUND:Relative prices of healthy/unhealthy foods have been implicated in the obesity epidemic, but never extensively quantified across countries or empirically linked to undernutrition. OBJECTIVES:This study compared relative caloric prices (RCPs) for different food categories across 176 countries and ascertained their associations with dietary indicators and nutrition outcomes. METHODS:We converted prices for 657 standardized food products from the 2011 International Comparison Program into caloric prices using USDA Food Composition tables. We classified products into 21 specific food groups. We constructed RCPs as the ratio of the 3 cheapest products in each food group, relative to the weighted cost of a basket of starchy staples. We analyzed RCP differences across World Bank income levels and regions and used cross-country regressions to explore associations with Demographic Health Survey dietary indicators for women 15-49 y old and children 12-23 mo old and with WHO indicators of the under-5 stunting prevalence and adult overweight prevalence. RESULTS:Most noncereal foods were relatively cheap in high-income countries, including sugar- and fat-rich foods. In lower-income countries, healthy foods were generally expensive, especially most animal-sourced foods and fortified infant cereals (FICs). Higher RCPs for a food predict lower consumption among children for 7 of 9 food groups. Higher milk and FIC prices were positively associated with international child stunting patterns: a 1-SD increase in milk prices was associated with a 2.8 percentage point increase in the stunting prevalence. Similarly, a 1-SD increase in soft drink prices was associated with a reduction in the overweight prevalence of ∼3.6 percentage points. CONCLUSIONS:Relative food prices vary systematically across countries and partially explain international differences in the prevalences of undernutrition and overweight adults. Future research should focus on how to alter relative prices to achieve better dietary and nutrition outcomes.

Dataset Information

Cookie or clementine? Psychophysiological stress reactivity and recovery after eating healthy and unhealthy comfort foods.

Publications

Cookie or clementine? Psychophysiological stress reactivity and recovery after eating healthy and unhealthy comfort foods.

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