Danni Guest Blogs: Stress eating in children

Danni Ji, one of Dr. T’s Health Psychology students, guest blogs again!:

In this recent study, researchers tested children to see how stressed they would get by delivering a speech or performing a mathematics task. They measured stress through salivary cortisol before and after the task. After the task, the children participated in an eating activity. Those with exhibited higher cortisol release consumed significantly more calories than those whose cortisol levels only rose slightly. Furthermore, researchers found that cortisol levels stayed elevated or decreased slowly in those kids with the greatest BMIs, and these kids also consumed the greatest number of calories. These findings shed much-needed light on triggers of eating in childhood.