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COVID-19 Stress and Food Intake: Protective and Risk Factors for Stress-Related Palatable Food Intake in U.S. Adults

(1) Background: The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has caused disruptions to what people eat, but the pandemic’s impact on diet varies between individuals. The goal of our study was to test whether pandemic-related stress was associated with food intake, and whether relationships between stress and...

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Autores principales: Sadler, Jennifer R., Thapaliya, Gita, Jansen, Elena, Aghababian, Anahys H., Smith, Kimberly R., Carnell, Susan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8000206/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33802066
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu13030901
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author Sadler, Jennifer R.
Thapaliya, Gita
Jansen, Elena
Aghababian, Anahys H.
Smith, Kimberly R.
Carnell, Susan
author_facet Sadler, Jennifer R.
Thapaliya, Gita
Jansen, Elena
Aghababian, Anahys H.
Smith, Kimberly R.
Carnell, Susan
author_sort Sadler, Jennifer R.
collection PubMed
description (1) Background: The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has caused disruptions to what people eat, but the pandemic’s impact on diet varies between individuals. The goal of our study was to test whether pandemic-related stress was associated with food intake, and whether relationships between stress and intake were modified by appetitive and cognitive traits. (2) Methods: We cross-sectionally surveyed 428 adults to examine current intake frequency of various food types (sweets/desserts, savory snacks, fast food, fruits, and vegetables), changes to food intake during the pandemic, emotional overeating (EOE), cognitive flexibility (CF), and COVID-19-related stress. Models tested associations of stress, EOE, and CF with food intake frequency and changes to intake. (3) Results: Models demonstrated that the positive relationship between stress and intake of sweets/desserts was stronger with higher EOE, while the positive relationship between stress and intake of chips/savory snacks was weaker with higher CF. Higher EOE was associated with greater risk of increased intake of palatable foods. (4) Conclusions: Findings suggest that emotional overeating may escalate stress-associated intake of high-sugar foods, and cognitive flexibility may attenuate stress-associated intake of high-fat foods. Differences in appetitive and cognitive traits may explain changes to and variability in food intake during COVID-19, and efforts to decrease emotional overeating and encourage cognitive flexibility could help lessen the effect of COVID-19-related stress on energy dense food intake.
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spelling pubmed-80002062021-03-28 COVID-19 Stress and Food Intake: Protective and Risk Factors for Stress-Related Palatable Food Intake in U.S. Adults Sadler, Jennifer R. Thapaliya, Gita Jansen, Elena Aghababian, Anahys H. Smith, Kimberly R. Carnell, Susan Nutrients Article (1) Background: The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has caused disruptions to what people eat, but the pandemic’s impact on diet varies between individuals. The goal of our study was to test whether pandemic-related stress was associated with food intake, and whether relationships between stress and intake were modified by appetitive and cognitive traits. (2) Methods: We cross-sectionally surveyed 428 adults to examine current intake frequency of various food types (sweets/desserts, savory snacks, fast food, fruits, and vegetables), changes to food intake during the pandemic, emotional overeating (EOE), cognitive flexibility (CF), and COVID-19-related stress. Models tested associations of stress, EOE, and CF with food intake frequency and changes to intake. (3) Results: Models demonstrated that the positive relationship between stress and intake of sweets/desserts was stronger with higher EOE, while the positive relationship between stress and intake of chips/savory snacks was weaker with higher CF. Higher EOE was associated with greater risk of increased intake of palatable foods. (4) Conclusions: Findings suggest that emotional overeating may escalate stress-associated intake of high-sugar foods, and cognitive flexibility may attenuate stress-associated intake of high-fat foods. Differences in appetitive and cognitive traits may explain changes to and variability in food intake during COVID-19, and efforts to decrease emotional overeating and encourage cognitive flexibility could help lessen the effect of COVID-19-related stress on energy dense food intake. MDPI 2021-03-10 /pmc/articles/PMC8000206/ /pubmed/33802066 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu13030901 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) ).
spellingShingle Article
Sadler, Jennifer R.
Thapaliya, Gita
Jansen, Elena
Aghababian, Anahys H.
Smith, Kimberly R.
Carnell, Susan
COVID-19 Stress and Food Intake: Protective and Risk Factors for Stress-Related Palatable Food Intake in U.S. Adults
title COVID-19 Stress and Food Intake: Protective and Risk Factors for Stress-Related Palatable Food Intake in U.S. Adults
title_full COVID-19 Stress and Food Intake: Protective and Risk Factors for Stress-Related Palatable Food Intake in U.S. Adults
title_fullStr COVID-19 Stress and Food Intake: Protective and Risk Factors for Stress-Related Palatable Food Intake in U.S. Adults
title_full_unstemmed COVID-19 Stress and Food Intake: Protective and Risk Factors for Stress-Related Palatable Food Intake in U.S. Adults
title_short COVID-19 Stress and Food Intake: Protective and Risk Factors for Stress-Related Palatable Food Intake in U.S. Adults
title_sort covid-19 stress and food intake: protective and risk factors for stress-related palatable food intake in u.s. adults
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8000206/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33802066
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu13030901
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