Does Stress Causes Hunger?

Does Stress Causes Hunger?

psychological relationships with food. Your physical relationship with food is based on the types of foods you choose to eat, your eating behavior, or habits and how your body responds biologically to your diet.

Your psychological, or emotional, relationship with food is based on how you think about food, how you use food for reasons other than to relieve hunger, and how food relates your body image, or the way you feel about how you look.

Sometimes you eat to satisfy true hunger, to fulfill a physical need to eat and survive. At other times, such as when you stress-eat, you eat to satisfy your appetite, or your desire for a particular type of food, because you believe it will provide relief.

That’s a psychological, or emotional, need that generally has nothing to do with actual hunger. Emotional hunger is a driving response to overwhelming feelings and emotions.

“Of course, if you’re hungry and stressed at the time, you may well be eating to satisfy true hunger,” adds Allison. “But, at the same time, you may choose fast food or a sweet dessert over something more nutritious because, at that moment, you’re not trying to eat healthfully.”

The biological reason you overeat when stressed may be that persistent stress causes increased and ongoing secretion of a hormone called cortisol into the bloodstream, and high blood levels of cortisol are linked to increased appetite.

Stress-related levels of cortisol have been found to be significantly higher in obese women than in women at a healthier weight, although that link doesn’t always result in overeating.