Can The Food You Eat Affect Your Mood?

Arbetter, Sandra R. "Eating disorders: emotional foods fights." Current Health 2, a Weekly Reader publication Mar. 1989: 4+. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 29 Feb. 2016.

The body responds differently to food types, either healthy or convenience, and determines the mood and daily productivity of an individual. According to Donald D. Hensrud, in order to enjoy an increase in energy and good-feelings, eat more fruits and vegetables as they promote a healthy body

In Jessica Harris’s “The Culinary Season of my Childhood” she peels away at the layers of how food and a food based atmosphere affected her life in a positive way. Food to her represented an extension of culture along with gatherings of family which built the basis for her cultural identity throughout her life. Harris shares various anecdotes that exemplify how certain memories regarding food as well as the varied characteristics of her cultures’ cuisine left a lasting imprint on how she began to view food and continued to proceeding forward. she stats “My family, like many others long separated from the south, raised me in ways that continued their eating traditions, so now I can head south and sop biscuits in gravy, suck chewy bits of fat from a pigs foot spattered with hot sauce, and yes’m and no’m with the best of ‘em,.” (Pg. 109 Para). Similarly, since I am Jamaican, food remains something that holds high importance in my life due to how my family prepared, flavored, and built a food-based atmosphere. They extended the same traditions from their country of origin within the new society they were thrusted into. The impact of food and how it has factors to comfort, heal, and bring people together holds high relevance in how my self-identity was shaped regarding food.

Kelly McCarthy wrote an article “Cookie Monster” which she included that a person may be using food to change their mood. She questioned: When you’re feeling blue, is the cookie jar your best friend? What about when you’re happy? McCarthy stated we tend to think of emotional eating as only for the depressed, but new research indicates that even people who say they are happy tend to throw back a couple of chocolate bars if they think the sweets will help them stay upbeat. A study published recently in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology revealed that about twice as many university students ate cookies, pretzels and cheese when they thought the food would affect their mood. Some thought the snack would make them feel happier, but others thought it would simply keep them feeling good. Both of these articles summarize the findings of psychological

When we are sad, we eat. When we are happy, we eat. We celebrate birth, life, and death with food. Our emotions are bonded with food. A simple bite of food can remind us of happier and safer times or it can make you wallow in sadness, for those happier and safer times are long gone. You can taste the love prepaid in food; it fills you up with glee. However, you can also taste the oppression in food, each morsel sautéed with anger and anguished. Food and humans have an influence, over the other; the two are emotional bound. The food in Like water for Chocolate was more than just for nourishment, it was an outlet for concealing emotions of the characters. The food expressed heartache and joy. It brought out both good and bad memories. Whether they were cooking or eating it, food was more than just, dinner to the characters.

Through my research I wanted to learn about exactly what anti-depressants do chemically . I also wanted to determine what role genetics, heredity, environment, and biological factors play in depression. Though I was not able to answer all of these questions, I learned a lot about depression and even developed some theories of my own. For a long time, I have thought of some forms of depression as a weakness. I truly believed that in many cases it could be controlled by the depressed person themself. I also felt that environmental and personal factors played were the basis for depression. However, through what we have learned in class and from my research, I have come to realize that this theory is not completely true. Mood is a generalized control mechanism like sleep. Eating also exhibits many characteristics of generalized control mechanisms. Mood can be affected by sensory input and the I-function, but it is also autonomous in that it can vary independent of sensory input. This internal variation is pharmacologically dependent. Changes in a persons pharmacological makeup can cause mood changes, sleep disturbances, and even depression. The I-function influences mood manipulation but cannot determine mood. Though you may want to be in a good mood, make a conscious effort to think RhappyS thoughts, and may not have serious stressors in your life, you may still suffer clinical depression as a result of a chemical imbalance in your system. Depression can be physical and

Recipes crafted throughout generations invoke feelings of pleasure when eaten occasionally. When enjoyed especially around the holidays, a simple dish is transformed into a manifestation of love. When eaten in celebration, it acts as a window into the unique expression of every family. The near obsession with the taste and quality of soul food can be justified by its high in fat content, but it is important not to forget how the psychology of growing up with this food remains with a child forever. It makes sense for it to also be known as “comfort food,” food that is typically unhealthy yet invokes feelings of innocence, childhood, and

Lang, Greenwald, Bradley, Hamm, 1993; P. Lang, Bradley, & Cuthbert, 1997). The general goal of appetitive motivational activation is information intake in the pursuit of opportunities for biological success (A. Lang, 2006). Thus, it comes as no surprise that food stimuli are detected and recognized faster during visual search tasks, remembered better, and produce stronger hedonic reactions (Harrar, Toepel, Murray, & Spence, 2011; Morris & Dolan, 2001; Stoeckel, Cox, Cook, & Weller, 2007). However, food of different types may not always create uniform increases in appetitive response and activation. Studies have shown that appetitive responses are modulated by personality characteristics, behavioral traits, physiological traits, nutritional content, and advertising efforts (Bailey, 2015; Harris, Bargh, & Brownell, 2009; Lawrence, Hinton, Parkinson, & Lawrence, 2012; Marchiori, Corneille, & Klein, 2012; Martin, Coulon, Markward, Greenway, & Anton, 2009; van Strien, Herman, Anschutz, 2012).

Stress is a well known part of college. Even if prepared the long papers, painstaking testes, and unforgiving reading can be emotionally draining. Stress can also be cause by money, relationships and many other events that happen in ones life. One way people cope with emotions is by eating. Most of the time the food consumed when emotion eating is unhealthy and in large proportions. According to a study of college students and their cardiovascular health, almost 60 percent college students said their stress level as being high or

The main cause of emotional eating is stress. It has been noticed among a large range of people of whenever the condition of stress arise people become more inclined towards over eating ,moreover when people go through stressful conditions, their cortisol increase. Cortisol is also known as “the stress hormone”. Though, the function of cortisol in positive and beneficial in the human body yet its prevalence in excessive levels may cause chronic stress. The chronic stress along with high levels of cortisol brings a lot of problems in the body. For example, the high levels of cortisol may result in a strong desire or craving for sweet foods or salty dishes. This disease not only makes them obese and fat, but also makes them mentally retarded. They become unable to face and manage their hard circumstances. Emotional eating has worst consequences on the confidence and courage of a person. Thus, stress and emotional eating drift people towards several other ills and

• Psychic Factors; What is in the mind of someone could affect the dining habits. A lot of people who provide a reaction to his emotions with a meal. One form of the disorder of emotion is a negative self-perception

New research (Journal of Neuroscience, Dec 2006) demonstrating the link between serotonin levels and our ability to appreciate the salt and bitterness of food explains why carbohydrate cravings and weight gain are so closely associated with Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD).

I agree with conclusions formed about the significance of cortisol and the influence that society plays on fatigue and emotional eating. The brain produces the hormone cortisol which affects many of our functions. The study found that “an individual’s level of chronic cortisol exposure in brain areas related to affect and cognition may play important roles both in fatigue and in emotion. Both high and low levels of cortisol are known to be associated with depression and anxiety” (Yoshikawa et al.). It is amazing that one hormone can ultimately control so much of our lives. When cortisol levels are increased it increases our level of stress, fatigue, and appetite. When stress levels are increased unhealthy eating increases it results in an elevated

Mental health problems are believed to be the result of a combination of factors, including age, genetics and environmental factors. One of the most obvious, yet under-recognized factors in the development of major trends in mental health is the role of nutrition.(Associate Parliamentary & Health, 2008). Recent evidence suggests that good nutrition is essential for our mental health and that a number of mental health conditions may be influenced by dietary factors.. The body of evidence linking both diet and mental health is growing at a rapid pace ( Associate Parliamentary & Health, 2008). Recently, there have been a number of published studies identifying an inverse association between diet quality and the common mental disorders, namely depression and anxiety, in adults (Bellisle, 2004). Other prospective studies suggest that diet quality influences the risk for depressive illness in adults over time. The evidence indicates that food plays a contributing role in the development, management and prevention of specific mental health problems such as depression, schizophrenia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and Alzheimer’s disease ( Associate Parliamentary & Health, 2008).

The subject of food is as diverse and complex as the many dimensions that encompass it. We need food to survive, but once we get beyond the basic needs of nutrition, the subject of food takes on an entirely different character depending on ones values. People associate food with their own personal lifestyles, culture, history, values, heritage, history, identity, and other attributes that make them unique.