Snacks Make Us Happy

Comfort foods really do lift our mood, scientists claim.  Reaching for fatty treats such as ice cream or chips has long been a way of cheering ourselves up.  Now scientists have discovered that the comfort we get from eating these foods is not all in the mind.

Their breakthrough findings are the first to unravel physical secrets behind emotional eating and could give doctors insight into the causes of eating disorders and obesity. Researchers at the University of Leuven in Belgium carried out brain scans on volunteers who were played sad music and shown pictures of people with downcast expressions. Without knowing which was which, they were given either a fatty or saline solution via a feeding tube.
 

Images of their brain waves showed the volunteers who had the saline became four per cent more depressed by the music and pictures. Those who had the fatty solution stayed cheerful and their mood was hardly affected by the music and images.

The experiment appears to show it is not just the pleasurable taste and texture of comfort foods that boosts mood. The findings suggest signals are sent straight from the gut to the brain, which influence how we feel. The tests were performed on average-size volunteers but experts hope to find out if the overweight are more susceptible to the mood changes.

Specialist Dr Louis Aronne of the Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York said: ‘Many things in obesity have been said to be psychological and this adds to the body of evidence that something physical is going on. People who are obese may have to eat more to get the same stimulation as normal-weight individuals.’

The link between happiness and fatty foods may date to the Stone Age because fat was essential for survival – making it trigger reward centres in the brain.  Obesity expert Dr Giovanna Cizza, said of the study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation: ‘Evolution has provided us with an over-the-counter anti-sadness product. 'Don’t feel too guilty, but try to limit what you eat and cut down on something else.’