Why do I eat when I'm stressed, and why some people can't eat at all

Stress and appetite can move in either direction. In one survey of 212 students, 38% said stress made them eat more and 42% said it made them eat less. Mela Theory, the framework behind Nutrimelab, reads both as the emotions and biology layers answering pressure, and which way you tend to go changes what helps.

Say it's four o'clock on a day of back-to-back calls. You haven't stood up since lunch, there's a cold tea by the keyboard and someone has left a tin of biscuits on the desk next to yours. You take one during a call, then another while the next one loads, and by half past four the tin is lighter and you couldn't say what any of them tasted like. A colleague on the same calls hasn't touched anything since breakfast and says she couldn't eat if she tried.

Both of you are reacting to the same afternoon. Week 3 of this series starts with why food is the quickest comfort, and this piece looks at stress on its own, and stress is one of the clearest cases of appetite going both ways.

> Key Takeaways > > - In a survey of students, most said stress made them snack more, and some said they ate more overall and some less. > - Mela reads stress eating as learned, since food is often the fastest relief within reach, and reads losing your appetite under pressure as an ordinary response too. > - This week's practice is to answer "I've been so bad today" with a plain sentence such as "today was hard and food got me through".

Why do I eat when I'm stressed?

In my work I see stress eating follow a pressured moment more than a gap since the last meal, often fast and often at the desk, and noticing that is the first step. Mela reads it as learned. In Mela's reading, stress is a state you want out of and food is often the fastest relief within reach, so each time it helps the link may get a little stronger.

The emotions layer is where Mela places most of this. A hard email or a day with no let-up tends to build a feeling that wants an exit, and food offers one in seconds without anyone's permission. It also gives you something to do with your hands while your head is busy, and a few seconds of pleasure in a day that may have had none.

Mela gives the biology layer a part as well, and reads stress as felt in the body as much as the mind. I'll leave the hormones out here. Mela sees your body and your habits answering the pressure together, and neither of them is a flaw in your character.

Willpower often has little to do with it. There is a longer piece on this site on why emotional eating is not a willpower problem, and it applies to stress as much as to any other feeling. If you can't tell whether this afternoon is stress, boredom or plain hunger, telling hunger from boredom has its own page.

Why does stress take some people's appetite away?

Stress can take appetite away, and in one survey it did so about as often as it turned appetite up. In Oliver and Wardle's survey of 212 students, 42% said they ate less overall when stressed and 38% said they ate more. Mela sees both as ordinary responses to the same kind of day.

The same study found that people who were dieting were more likely to say they ate more under stress, and people who weren't dieting were more likely to say they ate less (Oliver and Wardle, 199900322-9)). It was a short questionnaire about what people believed stress did to their eating, in one group of students, so it tells us what people notice rather than what they measurably ate.

Michael Macht's review of emotions and eating lists the suppression of food intake as one of five ways emotions change eating, alongside eating to regulate a feeling (Macht, 2008). It is a model built from earlier studies, so read it as a map rather than a measurement.

Mela reads short, sharp pressure as more likely to switch appetite off, and long, low-level stress as more likely to turn it up, though the same person can do both in one week. If that is you, an empty plate at lunch on a hard day is not a failure either, and in Mela's reading appetite often comes back once the pressure drops.

Stress eating, what you reach for, and why

In my work I see the foods people reach for under stress tend to be quick, sweet, salty or soft, and easy to eat with one hand. Oliver and Wardle's survey is consistent with this. Most of the students, 73%, said stress made them snack more. They reported eating more snack-type foods when stressed, and fewer "meal-type" foods such as fruit and vegetables, meat and fish.

Mela looks at this through the habits and culture layers. The biscuit tin at work and the crisps in the car are often foods that have been there at hard moments before. Some may also be the foods you were given as a child after a hard day. Mela sees that as one reason they come to mind first, and there is no reason to fear or ban them.

What helps when stress is the trigger, alongside food

When stress is the trigger, it can help to have one or two other answers that meet the same need, with food still allowed. The need is often a break from the pressure. A two-minute pause away from the screen or a message to someone who will understand can each do part of that job.

Say it's Wednesday at eleven and a difficult email lands. Your hand is already moving towards the drawer where the snacks live. You could open it, and that would be fine. You could also stand up, walk to the window or the kettle, and read the email again from there before you reply. Two minutes later the snack may still look good, in which case have it. Or the pressure may have dropped enough that you'd rather get on. Either way, you chose, and you learned which answer that moment wanted.

The aim is to have more choices. Some afternoons the biscuit with a cup of tea will be exactly right, and some afternoons a walk will do more. The Week 3 pillar of this series has a longer list of comforts that can sit alongside food, and this is the stress-shaped version of it.

Stress and tiredness arrive together

Stress often arrives with company. A hard week tends to mean shorter nights, and by Thursday it can be hard to tell whether you're reaching for food because you're tense, tired or both. Mela reads tiredness as a close cousin of stress in the way it turns appetite up, especially in the evening. There is a separate page on why evenings can feel louder when you're tired, and if your stress eating is mostly late at night, that piece may be the more useful one.

This week's practice

This week, when a food judgement appears, write down a more neutral response. Stress eating can bring its own commentary afterwards, and that commentary may add a second layer of pressure to a day that already had plenty. Nothing is weighed, counted, restricted or made up for, and you can eat whatever you were going to eat.

Keep a note on your phone. Say it's Tuesday evening and the sentence in your head is "I've been so bad today, I ate the whole afternoon." Write it down, then underneath write the plain version, something like "Today was hard and food got me through." The second sentence carries no verdict, and it points at the stress more than at you.

If your stress takes your appetite instead, the practice works the same way. The judgement might be "I can't even manage to eat properly." The plainer sentence might be "I was too wound up to eat at lunch, so I'll have something small and easy when I can."

Write the pair down even on days when it feels silly, and don't edit the judgement to make it sound kinder before you write it. The point is to see the voice clearly, in the words it actually uses, and then to see the plainer version next to it.

By the end of the week you'll have a short record of which days were hard and what your appetite did on each.

When the stress doesn't lift

Often stress passes when the deadline does, and appetite tends to settle back with it. Sometimes it doesn't. If weeks go by and your appetite is still gone, or eating has become the only thing that takes the edge off, that is worth paying attention to. Ongoing worry or anxiety can sit underneath both, and what some people call anxious eating is something to talk through with someone rather than to solve with food rules. If the stress has turned into a low mood that won't lift, please talk to your GP, or call Samaritans on 116 123. It's free, and someone is there to listen any time, day or night.

Next step

See the 7-week programme