14 DAY TRIAL // A new Finnish study offers an insight into the cravings that usually come with the territory of an office job. As it turns out, overworked or bored with their career women are more likely to turn to comfort eating.
Published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and cited by the Daily Mail, the study shows a direct connection between work and women's relationship with food, in the sense that, when one deteriorates, so does the other.
Career women who are simply too tired or too bored with their job will turn to food for comfort, the study says.
Researcher Nina Nevanpera of the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health notes that, in order to deal with overeating, one should first address the trigger because, otherwise, the problem will not find an adequate solution.
“Those experiencing burnout may be more vulnerable to emotional eating and uncontrolled eating and have a hindered ability to make changes in their eating behavior,” she says.
“We recommend that burnout should be treated first and that burnout and eating behavior should be evaluated in obesity treatment,” the researcher adds.
The study was conducted on 230 women aged 30 to 55, with the aim to discover healthy lifestyle changes.
All participants had a job and, at the end of the study, had to answer questions about the level of stress and exhaustion that came with the position they occupied.
About 22 percent of them experienced some level of burnout and, as such, had overeating and uncontrolled eating issues.
Even if they were of normal weight, the problem could lead to obesity or other health issues later in life, Nevanpera says.
Stress should not be dealt with with food, even in those rare cases in which excess weight does not appear, because it reinforces a habit that is anything but healthy.