Learning about the HPA Axis and the way our body functions from stress-induced scenarios, you would think that stress-eating would not be a thing. The way our body handles stress, stressful situations allow fight or flight reactions to come into motion which reduce digestion, reproduction and rest mechanisms, thus suppressing hunger when we are stressed. Instead, higher levels of respiration and cardiac events are a result to improve actions necessary to prevail whatever danger or threat there may be. But, with stress eating, the stress no longer stays at acute stress to where these adaptive mechanisms occur and provide positive outcomes, but chronic stress takes place. Too much stress for too long periods of times end up altering the stress systems, making it less adaptive and more of an issue.
Basically what happens is through this chronic activation of stress through the HPA axis, resistance to insulin and increased amounts of cortisol released both stimulate appetite which suppresses the signal for fullness of eating. This therefore is why people have the desire and need to eat even when they aren't hungry. In this, prolonged stress decreases the HPA axis activity and over time as the more calories are consumed from the increased appetite, more systems are shut down and less hormones released to prevent this from occurring in the first place. As everything shuts down and chronic stress continues, acute stress situations occur that overlay where a scenario that wouldn't have such an impact on hunger and digestion would take place is now affected due to the degeneration of the HPA axis, a greater preference and actual consumption of sugary and fatty foods occur in the end resulting in body fat gain (Yau, 2013).
Overall, acute stress doesn't cause hunger or stress eating, but an overlaying of chronic stress that occurs over a long period of time to affect the HPA axis in a negative way to when acute stress occurs on top of chronic stress, it isn't able to function in it's proper way and overeating takes place. So the next time you eat that cookie when you are stressed, now you know that you aren't actually hungry and you're experiencing chronic and acute stress simultaneously... hope that helps??
Reference:
Yau, Y. H., & Potenza, M. N. (2013). Stress and eating behaviors. Minerva endocrinologica, 38(3), 255–267.
Hello Kyleigh! Overeating is definitely a problem when it comes to increasing stress levels. We as a society always joke about "the freshman 15" or "grad school weight" that people develop as a consequence of being in new stressful situations. On the contrary this cycle is not a joking matter as obesity can lead to a plethora of health problems. Another side effect of stress is decreased initiative to exercise, with an increase in sedentary behavior. This was true in both acute and chronic stress settings, for example prior to final examinations versus months of a stressor, according to a study in 2014, (Stults et al., 2014). As we have discussed in class, the treatment for weight gain is to increase output and decrease input, both of which seem to be reversed in stressful situations, which is why it makes sense that individuals gain weight while in stressful situations!
ReplyDeleteReferences
Stults-Kolehmainen, M. A., & Sinha, R. (2014). The effects of stress on physical activity and exercise. Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.), 44(1), 81–121.
Hi Kyleigh,
ReplyDeleteThank you for this interesting read! As someone who has partake in stress-induced eating, it's good to finally know how and why it occurs. Stress-eating leads to the potential of obesity and overweightness -- both of which has increased dramatically over the past few decades, resulting as a health epidemic in the United States (Sogari et al., 2018). As undergraduate and graduate students, we experience psychological distress, anxiety and depressive symptoms, low self-esteem, optimism and sense of self-efficacy (Saleh, Camart, & Romo, 2017). With those stress factors increasing our stress levels and straining our mental health, it is clear as to why students gain weight while they are in school. Research has been conducted to combat the the epidemic of obesity and overweightness in students and the results indicated the importance of consulting students when developing healthy eating interventions across campus: labeling healthy food options and information campaigns (Sogari et al., 2018). Colleges and dining hall campuses should acknowledge their crucial role in guiding healthy eating behaviors and be the first subjects to be interested in creating a healthy environment for students (Sogari et al., 2018).
The first step into lowering obesity and overweightness due to stress-eating begins with acknowledgements from both campuses and students. Campuses acknowledging their influences of student eating habits and students combating stress through activities that relieves stress levels. If both campuses and students work together, they can combat the weight gain induced from stress and hopefully decrease the cycle of stress-eating and weight gain.
References
Saleh, D., Camart, N., & Romo, L. (2017). Predictors of Stress in College Students. Frontiers in psychology, 8, 19. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00019
Sogari, G., Velez-Argumedo, C., Gómez, M. I., & Mora, C. (2018). College Students and Eating Habits: A Study Using An Ecological Model for Healthy Behavior. Nutrients, 10(12), 1823. doi:10.3390/nu10121823