Appetite 1981, 2,115-125

The Effects of Life Stress and Weight on Mood and Eating

JOYCE SLOCHOWER

Hunter College, City University of New York and Center for Policy Research

SHARON P. KAPLAN

Center for Policy Research

and LISA MANN Hunter College, City University of New York

--_ ..•.... _-_ ..

The effects of life stress on mood and eating in obese and normal weight individuals were assessed in a repeated measures design. Obese and non-obese female college students' eating and mood were measured (1) during final examinations and (2) three weeks after exams. The results indicated, as predicted, that obese students ate significantly more during than after their exams. Further, correlations showed that overweight students' eating was positively related to their anxiety level and negatively related to their sense of control over feelings. In addition, after final exams, obese students' eating was correlated with affects related to low self-esteem. Normal weight students' eating contrasted markedly with that o f the obese: normal weight students' eating did not vary as a function oflife stress, although a negative correlation between self reported anxiety and eating was found during the exam period. The importance of emotional states in the overeating pattern is discussed.

Considerable clinical work has described the obese individual as characterized by excessive anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, and conflict and has also pointed to the obese patient's eating as a response to those emotional states (Bruch, 1973; Conrad, 1954; Freed, 1947; Hamburger, 1951 ; Kaplan & Kaplan, 1957). According to Bruch and others, this eating response to emotional distress develops as a result of inappropriate feeding experiences in infancy and early childhood. In a recent survey of the animal and human literature on stress-related eating, Robbins and Fray (1980) suggest, in line with Bruch (1973), that obese people do eat compulsively in response to emotionality, although thi s eating response does not result in stress reduction. However, the human experimental literature on stress-induced eating is rather sparse and has produced mixed results (Abramson & Wunderlich, 1972; Herman & Polivy, 1975; McKenna, 1972; Resnick & Balch, 1977; Schachter, Goldman & Gordon, 1968). Generally these data show either slight or no increase in eating for anxious obese subjects, and also fail to find that eating has an anxiety-reducing effect in the obese group.

This research was supported by NIMH Grant No. 30127. We wish to thank Judith Rabino and Barbara Stanley for their valuable comments and Robin Stark for her assistance in the conduct of the study.

Requests for reprints should be sent to Joyce Slochower, Department of Psychology, Box 1467, Hunter College, 695 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10021, USA.

0195- 6663/81/020115 + 11 $02·00/0 CO 1981 Academic Press Inc. (London) Limited

116 1. SLOCHOWER, S. P. KAPLAN AND L. MANN

However, a recent differentiation between two types of emotional states proposed by Siochower (1976) and Siochower and Kaplan (1980) begins to clarify this contradiction. They proposed a distinction between uncontrollable and controllable emotional states. The former describes a sense of being overwhelmed by the feelings and by an inability to do anything to alter that state. In the latter type, the individual feels able to alter the feeling state, and thus has a sense of control over it. In these two studies it was found that obese people show distinctly different eating responses to anxiety states that they experience as controllable and uncontrollable. Uncontrollable anxiety increased eating in obese subjects, while controllable anxiety did not. The relationship between uncontrollable, ambiguously labelled anxiety and overeating was obtained in both studies where anxiety levels were altered through false heart-rate feedback. In each case, obese subjects ate significantly more when they either could or could not label or control their feeling state when a label or sense of control was present.

Several questions can be raised by these findings. The most central concerns the external validity of the obtained data. First, does uncontrollable anxiety trigger eating in the "real world"? Secondly, how generalizable is this anxiety-eating relationship? Do obese people overeat in response to other types of emotional upset (especially low self­esteem) as clinical work suggests?

In order to extend our findings concerning the relationship between anxiety, loss of control over feelings, and eating, we chose a life situation characterized by varying levels of external stress, and then measured the emotional and eating responses of overweight and normal weight participants to that situation. An ideal short-term life stress seemed to be final examination period at a large college. Here, all students must take a major examination (often in addition to writing term papers) in each of their courses within a two-week period. The time frame surrounding final exam week is notorious for arousing anxiety in students. Further, interviews with students suggested that the anxiety they experienced was often felt to be uncontrollable.1 Students reported that they were aware that their anxiety prevented them from performing optimally. Since they never knew what to expect on this barrage of tests (which were thus felt to be unpredictable), and because the outcome of those exams was so important to them, they often felt quite overwhelmed and out of control during this period (despite the fact that they could anticipate the termination of exam week). Once exams were over, however, much of this anxiety and sense of loss of control was relieved. We thus hoped that by testing students during exam week, and then several weeks thereafter, we could observe their eating and emotional reactions under very different external conditions. This design would allow us to make within-subject comparisons of eating and mood in different stress situations. By measuring eating in the laboratory, we would also be able to control for other variables that influence food intake, i.e. hunger level and the potency of external food cues (cf. Schachter & Rodin, 1974).

While it is expected that, overall, subjects will experience more anxiety and less control over their feeling state during than after exams, we also expect to find considerable variability in the strength of students' emotional reactions to exami­nations. Therefore, in considering the effect of emotional state on eating, we will examine both between-session differences in eating, and correlations between the

1 I t should be underlined that the the concept of"control" used here refers to people's sense of control over their emotional (i.e. internal) state. While this sense is often altered by perceived loss of control over external events, it is the impact of these events on emotional state that is central to this study.

STRESS AND EATING 117

amount eaten and both anxiety level and sense of control over feelings at each session. The latter measure will permit us to assess the precise relationship between intensity of affect and eating for individual obese and normal weight subjects. In line with the earlier reports of Siochower, it is expected that obese students will eat significantly more during than after exams. It is also expected that, at each session, eating by overweight students will be positively correlated with their anxiety level and with loss of control over their feelings. In contrast, normal weight students should reduce their eating following increases in anxiety, because anxiety inhibits the physiological correlates of hunger (cf. Schachter et aI., 1968). No predictions are made concerning normal weight students' reaction to loss of control over affect.

METHOD

Overview of the Procedure

The effects oflife stress on mood and eating were assessed in a two-session repeated measures design. Overweight and normal weight female college students were tested during and after their final examinations. At each session, the amount they ate was recorded. In addition, students rated their emotional state on 13 mood scales at each sessIOn.

Subjects

Forty female undergraduates were recruited from the campus of an urban college approximately one month before final exam week. Students were requested to participate in a study of self-perception. Each potential participant completed a recruitment form containing questions about height, weight, and their exam schedule, as well as several irrelevant questions. Initial subject selection was based upon self­report of height and weight. At the end of the first session, students were weighed and measured,2 and percent overweight was calculated according to Metropolitan Life Insurance (1959) weight norms. This yielded 23 moderately overweight students ranging between + 15% and + 50% overweight (M = + 30'0%) and 17 non-obese students, ranging between -8% and +8,/;, overweight (M= +0'01%).

At the end of the study, students all completed a weight history questionnaire in order to obtain data on weight stability over time. Three normal weight students reported marked weight fluctuations from under- to overweight during the past five years and were eliminated to more clearly differentiate normal from obese groups. No obese students reported marked weight shifts during this period. Seventy percent ofthe obese group became obese between the ages of 11 and 15 and can thus be classified as adolescent-onset obese. Our final sample included 23 obese students and 14 normal weight students.

Procedure

Each student was scheduled for two sessions after lunch (to minimize between­session differences in hunger). Session 1 was scheduled no more than 5 h before an

2The "cover story"' for the weight measurement was that a second graduate student was collecting physical data on college students for a survey. No participants expressed any suspiciousness or any objection to this procedure.

118 J. SLOCHOWER, S. P. KAPLAN AND L. MANN

exam.3 Session 2 was scheduled three weeks after the student's last examination (during summer vacation).

When a student arrived, she was seated at a desk where she read and signed a consent form. The experimenter then introduced her to the study, which was described as an investigation of self-perception, involving both questionnaires and a thinking task. Students were told that there were no correct or incorrect answers to any questions and were assured oftheir anonymity. Then they completed Questionnaire 1. This contained 13 (9-point) mood scales as well as an open-ended question which probed for explanations for their feeling state. The scales focu sed on the student's current emotional state, and assessed degree of distress, especially anxiety, loss of control over feelings, and low self-esteem .4

An index of eating was obtained in the context of a "thinking task". This task was designed in order to present eating as just one of several equally appropriate activities (and thus minimized both any demand characteristics of the eating situation, and any self consciousness about eating). The experimenter placed several toys, a paper and pencil, and an open tin containing 600 g of M&M candy on a table. The candy was directly in front ofthe student's preferred hand. The experimenter described the task as one in which the student should think about and examine one or more of the objects and its various attributes. She was told to "feel free to touch the objects, to doodle, and to eat the candy" (after Ross, 1974; Slochower, 1976; Slochower & Kaplan, 1980). The experimenter left her alone in the room for 5 min . She then knocked, entered, and removed the candy (to weigh it), as well as the objects . Subjects were then weighed and measured. This concluded Session 1.

The second session was identical in format to Session 2. However, at the end of the second session, students completed a weight history questionnaire. Finally, after a suspicion probe, they were debriefed.

RESULTS

Effects of Examinations on Mood

It was expected that during their final examinations, students would feel significantly more anxious and less in control of their emotional state than they would feel after exams were over. To test this assumption and to see if any other changes in emotional state occurred, separate two-way analyses of variance with repeated measures on the session facto r were computed for each of the 13 mood scales on Questionnaire 1. The data indicate that during examination week, as compared with the post-exam measure, students felt considerably more anxious (F= 13-3, p<0'001)5 and less in control of their feelings (F = 5'68, p < 0'02). Furiher, both mood and self­esteem were found to change from Session 1 to Session 2: during exams, students felt more worthless (F=7'38, p< 0'01), depressed (F=2·91, p < 0·1O), bad (F= 19' 14, p < 0'001), less playful (F = 9'20, p < 0'005), and also less happy (F = J80,p < 0'06), (see

3We persuaded students to participate on the day of their exam by keeping the length of the session to 15 min. All 47 students completed both sess ions.

4The questions were: "How anxious are you feeling?", "How depressed?", "How happy?", "How angry?", "How worthless?", "How bad?", and "How playful?". The control question was "How much control do you have over these feelings?".

5 For all analyses of variance reported here, d[ = 1,36.

STRESS AND EATING 119

Table 1).6 Taken together, the data indicate that students' overall mood improved considerably after exams were over. In fact, when responses are summed across the seven mood scales, a repeated measure ANOV A confirms that during exams students experienced significantly more negative affect (F=20'06,p<0'001) than following exams.

When the responses of our obese and normal.weight students are compared, the data indicate that students' weight had no significant effect on self-reported mood for any scale (all F <2'50). Nor were any Subject x Session interactions revealed (all F < 2'00). Thus, when intensity of mood is considered, obese and non-obese students responded no differently to the stress of taking exams or to the relief of finishing them.

After completing the mood scales on Questionnaire 1, students were asked the open-ended question "Why have you been feeling this way?". At Session 1, 100% of the obese group and 95% of the normal weight group attributed their feeling state to the pressure of exams and term papers. In marked contrast, at Session 2,90% of the obese and 92% of the normals explained their feeling state by the lack of an external focus (e.g. "school is over and I don't know what to do with myself").

TABLE 1 Mean scale scores at Sessions 1 and 2

Obese students Normal weight students

Session

Scale Anxious Control Worthless Depressed Bad Playful Happy

5-42 2·96 3'00 5·83 5·74 3·20 3-87

2

3·83 5·95 5·56 3·58 2·20 2·96 3·93 5·12 2·30 5·02 5·35 3-35 5·94 3·94

Note: Scales were 9-point scales where 1 = not at all and 9 = extremely.

Effect of Examinations on Eating

2

2·90 5·88 1·99 2·99 1·90 5·59 5·06

To test the predicted increase in obese (but not in normal) students' eating during exams, a two-way analysis of variance with repeated measures on one factor was conducted on the amount of candy eaten. The mean amount eaten by overweight and normal weight students is presented in Table 2.7 The results from the analysis of variance reveal a significant main effect for subjects (F = 8· 33, p < 0'01), and a significant Subject x Session interaction (F = 4'68, p < 0'05). Tests for simple main effects indicate that the Subjects x Session interaction is accounted for by the obese group (for obese subjects F = 4'70, p < 0'05; for normal subjects F = 0·20); as predicted, obese students ate significantly more during than after exams, while normals showed only a non­significant decrease in eating during examination week. Further, a comparison of the

6No changes occurred on the scales less directly related to internal mood states, i.e. sleepy, active, compliant, angry, strong, and attractive.

'The assumption of homogeneity of variance which underlies the analysis of variance was tested using Cochran's method. The results indicated that between-cell variances for the amount eaten did not differ significantly from one another (C=O·36,NS).

120 1. SLOCHOWER, S. P. KAPLAN AND L. MANN

TABLE 2 Mean amount eaten during and after final examinations

Obese students (N=23)

Normal weight students (N=14)

Session 1

21·71

}05

Session 2

8·19

7·01

eating levels of obese and non-obese students (using simple effects tests) shows that it was only during Session 1 (i.e. examination week) that obese students ate more than their normal weight peers (at Session 1, F= 15·1O,p<0·001; at Session 2, F=0-42). Thus, as expected, the overeating of the obese group emerged only under conditions of high stress.

Anxiety, Control over Feelings, and Eating

In addition to examining between-session differences in eating, we also hypo­thesized that, for our obese students, eating would be positively correlated with self­reported anxiety level and loss of control. Normal weight students were expected to decrease their eating when anxious. No prediction was made concerning the responses of normals to loss of control. Correlations between anxiety, loss of control, and eating are presented in Table 3.

Correlations between anxiety and eating for obese students reveal that at Session 1 and at Session 2, obese students' eating was significantly and positively related to the degree of anxiety which they experienced. Normal weight students, on the other hand, decreased their eating somewhat when they felt more anxious. Thus, as predicted, obese and normal subjects differed significantly in their (eating) response to anxiety at Session 1 (z= 2'96, p <0'001) and at Session 2 (z= 2'93, p <0'001). Obese students also increased their eating significantly in response to reporting a loss of control over feelings at both sessions. Normal weight students showed a similar, but non-significant increase in eating in response to loss of control.

Because it seemed plausible that anxiety level might itself be related to feelings of loss of control, these variables were correlated at each session. Results revealed positive but non-significant correlations for obese subjects at both sessions (at Session 1, 1'=0'23; at Session 2, 1'=0·28). For normal subjects, correlations were negligible

TABLE 3 C ol'l'elation coefficients between al1xietl', cOl1trol, and eating

Mood scale

Anxious Control

Obese subjects (N=23)

0045* -0040*

*p<0'05; **p<O·OI.

Session 1

Normal weight subjects (N=14)

-0'58* -0'27

Obese subjects (N=23)

0'61 ** -0'57**

Session 2

Normal weight subjects (N=14)

-0'37 -0'27

STRESS AND 1:/\ n"'G 121

(al Session 1, r =0'08; at Session 2, r = 0'15). Because the correlations between anxiety and loss of control were positive for our obese subjects, partial correlations between eating, and both anxiety and control which removed the effects of the third variable were calculated, in order to make sure that anxiety and control each had non­redundant effects on eating. The results revealed significant partial correlations at both sessions for anxiety and eating [Session 1, r = 0-40, t(20) = 2'00, p < 0'05; at Session 2, r = 0'57, t(20) = 3'17, p < 0'01]. Partial correlations for control and eating were positive but marginal at Session 1 [r = - O' 34, t(20) = 1·62, p < 0·1 0] and significant at Session 2 [r = -0'52, t(20) =2'74, p < 0'01]. Thus, it appears that both anxiety and control were independently related to overweight students' eating at each session.

Taken together, these results indicate that, as predicted, the more anxious the obese student felt and the less able she was to control these feelings, the more she ate. Normal weight students showed a mild inhibition in eating when anxious, and showed a weak increase in eating in response to feelings of reduced control over affect.

Mood and Eating

In addition to describing their anxiety level and feelings of control at each session, students also rated their affective state on a series of mood scales. Correlations between these scales and eating were computed at Session 1 and at Session 2, and are presented in Table 4. Looking first at our obese subjects, the data indicate that no mood scale was significantly correlated with eating at Session 1. However, following their exams, obese students' eating was significantly related to the degree of depression, worthlessness, unhappiness, and anger which they felt. None of the other mood scales (i.e. sleepy, attractive, active, compliant, strong, and playful) were related to eating at either session.

For our normal weight students, only one mood scale was found to be related to eating at either session: At Session 2, there was a significant correlation between depression and eating. There were no other significant correlations between mood and eating for normals.

TABLE 4 Correlations between other mood scales and eating

Session 1 Session 2

Obese Normal weight Obese Normal weight Mood scale subjects subjects subjects subjects

Depressed 0·13 -0,27 0'45* Q-55* Worthless 0·09 -0,17 0'50* -0,04 Unhappy 0·15 -0,33 0'42* 0·13 Angry 0·12 -0·35 Q-43* Q-Ol

* p <0·05 .

Weight Differences in Responsiveness to Stress

We had expected that during final examinations, as compared with the post-exam measure, both obese and non-obese students would feel greater anxiety and a reduced sense of self-control over feelings. Our expectations concerning the effects of exams on

122 1. SLOCHOWER, S. P. KAPLAN AND L. MANN

mood were confirmed. There were, further, 110 weight differences ill the il1tl<nsity of emotional responsiveness to this life stress. This finding appears to contradict data demonstrating stronger emotionality on the part of obese subjects when confronted with salient stimuli, and weaker emotional responses when presented with neutral cues (Rodin, 1973; Rodin & Slochower, 1976). It is, unfortunately, difficult to interpret these data since the precise stimulus intensity to which subjects were exposed, given the reality of exam variability, is an unknown factor. However, another way to examine degree of external responsiveness might be to compare the amount of variability in ratings of mood shown by obese and by normal subjects (Slochower, 1976). Since Session 1 presented subjects with relatively clear-cut emotional cues (i.e. exams), the externally reactive obese subjects should have shown less variability than the normal subjects in mood ratings. This expectation was confirmed (for obese subjects, s= 1·91; for normals, s= 2'27, t= 3'08, p <0'01).8 Since Session 2 was described by subjects as an unstructured time involving no clear-cut external stimuli, obese subjects might be expected to show as much or more mood variability than normals. In fact, obese subjects' ratings at Session 2 were somewhat, but non-significantly more variable than were normals' (for obese subjects, s=2·21; for normals, s=2'01, t= 1'44). Taken together, these data provi"e some confirmation of the potion of il1creased hyperreac-­tivity in overweight people.

DISCUSSION

Stress and Eating

Our major hypotheses concerned the positive relationship between eating and uncontrollable emotions for overweight individuals. The results iQdicate that obese students ate considerably more (about 2~ times) during than following their final examinations. In addition, there was a significant relationship between both the intensity of anxiety and loss of control experienced by the obese student and the amount she ate during both high and low stress periods. Apparently, the un­controllable stress-eating relationship is powerful enough in the obese person to emerge even when abo lute stress level is relatively low. This pattern is markedly different from that exhibited by the normal weight student. Since the obese and normal weight groups responded similarly to the exam situation itself, it seems clear that eating differences cannot be attributed to the two groups' differential reaction to external stress.

Our data for obese students also revealed that, following exams, a second constellation of emotions related to loss of self-esteem (i.e. depression, worthlessness, unhappiness, and anger) was correlated with eating, although no such relationships were evident during exam week. Both the prevalence offeelings oflow self-esteem in the obese person, and the relationship of these emotional states to overeating have been cited in the clinical literature (Bruch, 1973; Kaplan & Kaplan, 1957). In considering the implication of the present results, two findings seem relevant. Our data indicate that whereas at Session 1, students had a clear-cut label for their feeling state, Session 2 represented an unstructured time for most students, and they had little in the way of a clear explanation for their feelings. It seems plausible that because the rather intense

8These scores are based on subjects' responses to the seven scales (see Table 1) which proved to differentiate Sessions 1 and 2.

STRESS AND EATING 123

anxiety experienced during examinations was so easily attributable to this event, students were able to avoid dealing with the more disturbing emotions of worthless­ness, depression, etc., or simply that students' anxiety was strong enough to mask other emotions related to self esteem during this period. After school was over, however, the absence of an external life focus left students without an easy way to avoid the self­esteem issue, and the obese group's overeating represented an attempt to relieve these feelings.

Session 2 also represented a time of relatively milder emotional upset than did Session 1. Thus, it is also possible that the absence of significant correlations between eating and low self-esteem during exam week reflects the curvilinear relationship between self-esteem and eating, such that overeating occurs only when those feelings are of moderate, rather than severe intensity. Clearly, further research is needed to clarify the meaning of this pattern of results.

While the predicted relationships between overeating and both anxiety level and loss of control were based on the hypothesis that the overweight person responds to certain internal emotional states by overeating, the correlational nature of the present study does not permit clear-cut support for this causal relationship to be inferred. In fact, an alternative possibility exists, namely that during exams, obese students eat in an uncontrolled way, and that it is this uncontrolled overeating which produces both the increases in laboratory eating and in heightened anxiety and loss of control over affect. While our earlier experimental studies (Slochower, 1976; Slochower & Kaplan, 1980) tend to support the former explanation (i.e. that certain emotional states trigger overeating rather than vice versa), it is clear that further experimental studies will be needed to fully define the causal relationship between uncontrolled emotions (especially low self-esteem) and overeating.

The question of whether a variable other than stress level produced the between­session change in subjects' eating pattern may also be raised. It is possible that the two weight groups were differentially affected by the first experimental session, which involved both a measure of eating and a weigh-in. That is, the self-conscious obese students may have inhibited their eating at the second session in anticipation of being weighed. Unfortunately, this possibility cannot be fully ruled out. However, because (1) the initial weight measure was presented as irrelevant to the study (actually as part of another graduate students' research and not to be repeated), and (2) because the "eating measure" was apparently quite incidental to subjects' experimental task, it seems unlikely that students made this connection. In fact, prior to debriefing, when students were asked what they thought the study was really about, no subject mentioned anything related to eating or weight (actually, most talked about self-awareness as the study's focus).

The data for normal weight students indicates that they did not respond in any consistent way to changes in emotional state. While normals ate non-significantly less during than after exams, correlations between self-reported anxiety and eating were significant (and negative) at Session 1 (but not at Session 2). Thus, as in previous studies, non-obese students' eating was considerably less reactive than was that of obese students to their anxiety level. Normal weight students also showed a significant positive correlation between self-reported depression and eating at Session 2, and a non-significant tendency to respond to loss of control by eating more. These data suggest that certain extremely aversive emotional states like depression (Seligman, 1975) may alter the eating of both obese and non-obese people. However, an examination of the actual quantity eaten by obese and normal weight students

124 J. SLOCHOWER, S. P. KAPLAN AND L. MANN

indicates that these emotional states have a powerfully facilitating effect only on the eating of the overweight individua1.9

In considering the implications of these results, it seems that the obese group is unique in its overeating response to certain internal emotional states which are experienced as uncontrollable. Because the present findings were obtained from students in a real life setting which did not involve an experimental induction of anxiety or loss of control (and in which there was considerable variability in emotional responses), the potency of our earlier laboratory findings (Slochower, 1976; Slochower & Kaplan, 1980) is further supported. While our measure of eating (candy) was obtained in the laboratory, and its external validity is thus open to question, both clinical reports and recent data (Slochower, Note 1) suggest that a major way in which obese people overeat is by munching compulsively on sweets and carbohydrates which just happen to be available in the immediate environment. Our students were presented with the candy as if it were relatively incidental to the task at hand, but could, if they wished, be incorporated into the task. In that sense, this measure of eating was considerably less contrived than the typical "taste test" procedures (cf. Schachter et aI., 1968) used to measure eating. Nevertheless, its comparability to "real life" eating remains to be demonstrated.

In summary, our data point to the rather robust relationship between un­controllable stress and eating in obese persons. In addition, they suggest a more specific relationship between loss of self-esteem and overeating. Both the therapeutic implications of this model and its relationship to the externality hypothesis remain to be investigated.

REFERENCE NOTE

I. Slochower, J. Emotions, eating, and the environment. In press, 1981.

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Received 7 July, 1980; revision received 17 December, 1980