Is Your Mood Adding Inches to Your Waistline?

Posted on January 13th, 2010 | In General, Health & Lifestyle

Most of us are all too well aware that overeating, eating junk food and not exercising are sure to expand our belt buckles another notch. But weight gain is not always so cut and dry. Oftentimes you may carefully watch what you eat, load your plate full of fruits and veggies, even exercise regularly … and still not win the battle of the bulge.

In this latter case, your weight gain may have nothing to do with the foods you eat or the exercise you do, but rather with your emotional health.

A new study published in BMJ analyzed data from four medical screenings of over 4,300 British civil servants aged 35 to 55, including screenings that assessed mental health and measurement of height and weight.

People with a common mental health disorder, such as anxiety or depression, at all three previous screenings were twice as likely to be obese at the final screening compared with those who had no mental health disorder symptoms. Further, the risk of weight gain and obesity was the greatest for those who had more incidences of a common mental health disorder.

“The connection between mental health and weight gain is not a new one.”
Said Dr. Mark Dedomenico, M.D. in an MSN Health & Fitness blog post:
“Depression, like anxiety, causes some release of cortisone from the adrenal glands. Cortisone will cause insulin resistance at the cellular level, making the delivery into the cells difficult. This in turn causes hunger and weight gain.”

Stress, Job Layoffs and Anxiety May All Impact Your Weight

Research has shown that more than 50 percent of Americans increase their food intake when feeling stressed out. In the past people would lose weight when faced with stressful situations, but the stress of the economy and fear of the unknown are causing people to put on weight.

In fact, the more anxious people get, the more they tend to turn to sugar, fat and salt to boost their mood, albeit temporarily. This explains why boredom, lots of free time at home and financial woes are three big factors that drive people to overeat.

Overeating aside, just being stressed out can cause you to gain weight in and of itself, according to the Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation.

“Under stress, people conserve more fat, and we think that may be what’s going on here,” said psychologist and study co-author Tené Lewis of Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.

The study involved more than 2,000 women from their 40s through menopause, and the researchers asked them about unhappy events in their life over the past year. The results? Even after taking into account other factors that could affect weight gain (exercise habits, diet, smoking, etc.) it was found that the more bad things the women reported, the more weight they gained.

In other words, the greater the stress, the greater the women’s weight.

So the link between stress and weight gain is not just the tendency to overeat when stressed, but the fact that your body produces a hormone called cortisol in response to stress, and increased cortisol causes your body to store fat. So, even if you are watching your diet, stress can cause you to gain weight!

This is why getting into a positive state of mind and having proper relaxation are two of the most important keys to good health. They can help lower cortisol levels, effectively help you reduce stress and also contribute to weight loss at the same time.

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