Sugar may not mend a broken heart, but it helps to make us feel better, new research suggests. Post-breakup scenes in rom-coms often show heartbroken women eating their feelings by downing ice cream and chocolate, but it turns out, there’s some science behind it. A new study finds women really do crave sugary treats when they’re lonely and it explains why.
This kind of comfort eating is common in women when they’re lonelier, opting for sweet over savory.
It’s known as the “Bridget Jones effect,” after the character in the books and movies bearing her name, who famously reaches for a pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream to drown her sorrows after being dumped. According to a team of researchers from UCLA, lonely women want the sweets because they act like “emotional painkillers.”
- The 93 women in the study were interviewed about their feelings of loneliness and isolation, as well as their dietary habits and they also took body composition tests to estimate their body fat.
- The results show the more socially isolated women have higher levels of body fat, a less healthy diet, more cravings and more uncontrolled eating patterns.
- MRI scans taken of their brain activity while looking at photos of different kinds of food show greater activity in the part of the brain that controls desire for sugary food. The scans also show less activity in the areas associated with self-control.
“These findings are interesting because they provide evidence for what we intuitively know. When people are alone or lonely, it impacts more than how they are feeling,” says study author Dr. Arpana Gupta. Researchers explain that sweet food is “highly rewarding, with an analgesic effect that can reduce the social pain associated with social exclusion.”
Source: Daily Mail