Dieting and mood swings are not a match made in heaven.
Are you one of those people who, despite being on a strict diet, can’t help but chow down on a Krispy Kreme donut or three when you’re feeling blue?
And if you also feel you may not be Robinson Crusoe in this regard, then your gut feelings are on the money.
New research from Flinders University confirms what many of us strongly suspected to be the case: fluctuating emotions and sticking to dieting goals are not a match made in heaven.
Publishing in the latest edition of the journal ScienceDirect, our South Australian boffins detail how emotions influence eating behaviour in chronic dieters.
In particular, they tested whether negative moods and difficulties regulating emotions drove people towards unhealthy food choices – and no prizes for guessing that they indeed do.
The research team analysed a group of more than 150 women who used a seven-day “snack diary” to record everything they ate and to take note of their emotions prior to deciding to have a snack.
The results showed a clear interaction between the participants’ mood and dietary restraint, with “negative (but not positive) mood associated with greater unhealthy snack intake for restrained eaters, compared to unrestrained eaters”, the study authors said.
“Our findings show that your immediate emotional state is a much stronger driver of snacking than your overall personality or your usual mood patterns,” Dr Isaac Williams, from the College of Education, Psychology and Social Work, told media.
“It’s those in-the‑moment feelings that tend to push people off track.”
Dieters were especially vulnerable, consuming almost twice as many unhealthy snacks when they felt bad compared with when they felt good, the authors said.
Interestingly, the study also found that long‑standing emotional tendencies did not predict eating behaviour.
For example, people who generally experienced more negative emotions were not necessarily more likely to break their diet; instead, the emotion felt immediately before eating had the biggest impact.
“This tells us that what matters most is the immediate emotional context, not someone’s typical emotional style,” the study authors said.
The researchers suggested strategies that boosted positive mood or increased emotional awareness, such as brief mindfulness exercises, might help dieters stay on track.
“We’re not as rational about food as we like to think,” Dr Williams added.
“No shit, Sherlock,” we thought to ourselves, as we finished off the last of the deluxe salt and caramel Tim Tams we bought an hour earlier.
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