Food and Mood

Ever notice that when you are in a bad mood, you tend consume much junk food? Conversely when you are in a good mood and feeling positive about the future, have you noticed that you reach for something healthy, like fruit? Our emotions affect our eating and not only that, our food preferences. But why?

Researchers at Cornell University set out to answer that question with a series of four experiments. To explain food choice, they started by looking at the theories of affective regulation, how people react to their moods and emotions and temporal construal; a fancy term for the perspective of time.

“Conceptually, when people feel uncomfortable or are in a bad mood, they know something is wrong and focus on what is close in the here and now,” the researchers explained. “We hypothesized and demonstrated that this kind of thinking gets us to focus on the sensory qualities of our foods — not things that are more abstract like how nutritious the food is.” In contrast, when people are in a good mood and things seem to be going well, they can look at the big picture. “That kind of thinking allows people to focus on the more abstract aspects of food, including how healthy it is,” the scientists noted.

The first of the four experiments looked at the effect of a positive mood on the evaluations of indulgent and healthy foods by querying 211 people from local parent-teacher associations (PTAs). The scientists next studied whether people in a negative mood, put there by reading a sad story, evaluated indulgent foods more positively. They also surveyed the 315 undergraduate students in this study to determine whether those who were in a positive mood indicated a desire to remain healthy into their old age. In the third study, involving 151 undergraduate students, the researchers altered the students’ focus on the present versus the future, along with their mood, and then measured how much healthy and indulgent food they consumed.

To get more direct insight into the underlying process, the last study, involving 110 university students, focused specifically on the thoughts related to food choice and differentiated concrete taste versus nutrition benefits.“Ultimately, the findings of all the studies combined demonstrated that individuals select healthy or indulgent foods depending on whether they are in a good or a bad mood,” the researchers reported. “The findings also indicate the integral aspect of the time horizon, showing that individuals in positive moods who make healthier food choices are often thinking more about future health benefits than those in negative moods, who focus more on the immediate taste and sensory experience.”

Another key finding, however, is that people in negative moods can still make healthy food choices.“Trying to focus on something other than the present can reduce the consumption of indulgent foods,” the researchers concluded. So, if you’re feeling blue, acknowledge the feelings, and then remember that this too shall pass. This may help you reach for the oranges, pineapple slices, bananas instead of the potato chips and fried chicken.

Some sections of the article courtesy of www.psychcentral.com