Stress Causes Your Body to Use Food Differently

Stress Causes Your Body to Use Food Differently

Have you ever considered yourself a “stress eater?” Or sometimes it’s labeled as “emotional eating.” Turning to food when your stress levels increase is a common occurrence.

It’s a root cause for many obese men and women. The simple fact that our lives are full of stress – and we increase our calorie consumption during those times – is enough to pack on the pounds easily.

But researchers now say that highly stressed individuals actually have a harder time utilizing the foods they eat. There was a study conducted specifically regarding caregivers and how the stress they endure affects their bodies’ ability to process the foods they eat.

The University of California’s San Francisco Department of Psychiatry wanted to find out how chronic stress and eating affect the body. They took a sampling of women who were caregivers to a parent or partner suffering from memory loss and measured how their bodies reacted to the increase of more fat and more sugary foods.

They compared that to women who were eating the same foods, but not under the same stressful long-term conditions and they found that those under extreme stress didn’t handle the junk food as well – it led to larger waistlines and insulin insensitivity.

This particular study was for women over the age of 50. It revealed that the high stress group had metabolic changes – the kind that lead to disease, while the lower stressed women did not.

If you’re a man or woman (of any age) who is experiencing chronic stress and notices that you eat your worries away, then the key isn’t in trying to diet, but in trying to get a handle on the stress levels you experience.

There are many ways you can alleviate stress in those circumstances. It’s all rooted in self care. You have to take time for yourself and allow others (such as hospice workers) to take over while you rejuvenate yourself during these tough times.

You’re not just doing it for yourself and your own health, but for the loved one that you’re caring for. And if you have chronic stress that doesn’t involve care-taking, you can still engage in self care to stave off metabolic changes that might harm your body, too.