Stress and Caloric Consumption
Elsbeth K. Paige-Jeffers
In September 2023, my dog Watson was diagnosed with aortic cancer. He defied all clinical expectations, living for seven months while undergoing chemotherapy treatment. He died in early April, and his death is the most profound sense of loss I’ve ever experienced.
During these seven months, the demands on my time, body, and finances were intense. Those demands were nothing compared to Watson fighting cancer and continuing to show up as the most compassionate little dog, but they were saliently trying for my human experience. This has led me to think about how stress impacts the body, especially a body trying to train for weightlifting, compete at local and national meets, and consume the food necessary to fuel these endeavors.
During the final seven months of Watson’s life, I did not experience a wild change in appetite. When I felt acutely sad, my appetite was low, but this did not persist beyond a meal or two at a time. I typically track all of my food, and the data from those seven months suggest that I was eating rather normally. However, I did experience a deviation in my capacity to track. Meaning, I found I did not have the emotional or cognitive energy to weigh and log my food with the same consistency prior to Watson’s diagnosis. Thankfully, I do not need to be in frequent caloric restriction in order to make my bodyweight category. As such, perfect consistency with tracking was not necessary for me to continue to work towards my weightlifting goals while navigating Watson’s health. Under typical circumstances, I track to make sure I’m consuming the appropriate macronutrient balance for my training goals, as well as to keep a general sense of my caloric needs and appetite related to training intensity. During Watson’s illness, I did not backslide or deviate from my standard nutrition much at all. How was I able to manage this, given the intense stress of treating my dog for cancer and preparing for his eventual death?
Given my experiences, I looked into the literature to see what information exists regarding the correlation between stress and caloric consumption. I believe there is a general notion that higher stress leads to higher caloric consumption, but is this actually the case? It did not seem to be the case for me during Watson’s illness. Is there a linear, causal relationship between high stress and high consumption?
I found an interesting study that suggests there is an interaction effect between chronic stress levels and acute stress due to a social stress task. A “social stress task” does not mean to say a task that is stressful due to social interaction, but rather a challenging task that is not related to duress or trauma. In this study, two challenging tasks were used as “social stress tasks,” “a speech task and a mental arithmetic task” (Tryon et al., 2013). Participants were given food choices in a buffet setting after participating in these tasks (or not, if they were in the control group). Findings did not reveal higher caloric consumption for those with only one marker of stress, i.e. chronic stress levels or the social stress task. However, they did reveal higher caloric consumption for those with both markers of stress (Tryon et al., 2013). Put simply, if you are chronically stressed and experience an instance of further stress, you are more likely to consume more calories.
What does this mean, put simply? It suggests that reducing chronic levels of stress will help us to manage acute stress more effectively, such that we are not drawn to calorically-dense foods in ways that may undermine our health and athletic goals. This is compounded by a further component of this study, during which MRI imaging was used to identify how the brain reacts to the suggestion of food. Beyond preferring high-calorie foods after a stressful task, those with chronic stress also displayed “significant deactivation in [the] frontal regions [of the brain] linked to strategic planning and emotional control” (Tryon et al., 2013). When comparing individuals with high- and low-chronic stress, researchers observed differences in “brain regions thought to mediate motivation and decision-making responses to food and food cues” (Tryon et al., 2013). Thus, not only are those with higher levels of chronic stress less able to mitigate the impacts of stressful situations when making food decisions, they are also likely to have decreased brain activity in the parts of the brain that make those decisions about food. While this study does not address any potential interaction effect between these two mechanisms, it seems reasonable that if stress mitigation and rational capacity surrounding food are both diminished as a result of chronic stress, those with chronically high stress may experience a self-perpetuating inability to control caloric consumption.
To answer our earlier question of whether or not there is a linear, causal relationship between high stress and high consumption, the simple answer is “no.” However, there is nuance to this query. High levels of chronic stress are associated with higher caloric consumption, potentially for a variety of reasons. I expect most individuals would like to reduce unnecessary stress where possible in order to feel happier and experience a higher quality of life. Beyond this, the findings of this study suggest that managing long-term stress can lead to better decisions about food, which may reduce any additional stress surrounding food itself.
It is worth noting here that physiological stress related to abuse, historical trauma, PTSD, and the impacts of poverty and oppression is not to be trivialized. Stress management is not the same as clinical intervention or community-based healing. However, as a nutrition coach, I find that reducing the stress surrounding food can, indeed, reduce the stress surrounding food. When I experienced the stress of Watson’s cancer, I already had robust decision-making mechanisms surrounding my consumption of food, as well as highly effective stress-management techniques. This is in part because I had already navigated much of the emotional landscape surrounding eating to fuel my athletic performance, eating for survival, and eating for fun.
I have experienced many individuals put off refining their nutrition until an “ideal time.” I see the same logic extended to starting a fitness journey or trying a new sport. However, something is always better than nothing. With nutrition in particular, the nuances of the emotional landscape surrounding food deserve attention right now. The logistical difficulty of weighing food and tracking macros is relatively easy to handle, but is often complicated by emotion pitfalls surrounding the role food plays in our lives and how we manage stress. As this study suggests, this can be a self-perpetuating cycle. Being mindful about food, whether that’s working with a nutrition coach, a therapist, or through self-guidance, is a useful mechanism for intervening in that self-perpetuating cycle. This can lead to a host of other beneficial outcomes, including improved health outcomes, gym performance, and happiness. Eating well did not eliminate my sadness surrounding my dog Watson. However, in the week after his death, I swept gold at the USA Masters’ National Championships in my age and bodyweight categories. I did not perform as well as I have in the past, but my ability to perform was bolstered by work I began doing years prior when I started my nutrition-for-sport journey. We may not anticipate stressors in our lives, but we can begin to prepare regardless.
Reference
Tryon, M. S., Carter, C. S., DeCant, R., & Laugero, K. D. (2013). Chronic stress exposure may affect the
brain’s response to high calorie food cues and predispose to obesogenic eating habits.
Physiology & Behavior, 120, 233–242. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physbeh.2013.08.01
