Don’t Let Holiday Stress Lead to Overeating

It doesn’t take a double-blind placebo-controlled study to demonstrate something we all know – we’re all at increased stress levels during the holidays, just at the time when we’re offered more and richer food, at even more frequent intervals.  Two years ago I wrote a piece about scales that stated the average person gains 5 pounds between Christmas and New Year.  (And then probably takes 5 months to get back to where they were before.)  But it seems that the main cause of excessive eating during the holidays may be as much about stress as anything else.  This is the finding of a survey conducted by the American Psychological Association (APA) entitled 2010 Stress in America.   

Forty percent of adults surveyed said they’d overeaten or eaten unhealthy foods in the previous month because of stress.  They believed they didn’t have the time or the willpower to make the changes in lifestyle to allow them to deal with stress in more healthy ways – e.g. relaxation, exercise, or play.  (The survey found similar behavior for children, who are more aware of their parents’ stress levels than the adults realize.)

This survey was conducted in the fall.  Just think how much worse the situation must be during the holidays, when stress is increased and the temptations are greater; no wonder obesity has reached epidemic proportions.  If you can manage your stress levels over the holiday period, the effort will repay itself.  There a good article by a past president of the APA entitled “How to Stay Calm during the Holidays”; I can highly recommend it.

Let me take this opportunity to wish all my readers a happy holiday and a very healthy New Year!