Part of the reason people may be eating more while in lockdown is because they’re experiencing a loss of other sources of pleasure, primarily interacting with other people
, says Peter Hall, a professor of public health at the University of Waterloo. He adds many are also struggling with losing other things from which they gain positive feelings, such as employment, loved ones and a sense of security.
Meanwhile, food – especially tasty food – is a ready source of pleasure and it’s something people can control, Dr. Hall says. “At times when we are short on external sources of pleasure, we will try to balance things out by creating our own pleasurable experiences when we can,” he says. “So naturally we might reach out to food to manufacture some missing pleasure and balance ourselves out, hedonically speaking.”
Our brains are hard-wired to prefer calorie-dense foods, Dr. Hall says. Since humans have evolved under conditions of food scarcity and unpredictability, our brains are tuned to pay attention to and seek out calorie-dense foods that give greater caloric payoff for the energy expended to find it, he says.
Eating foods we associate with pleasant memories can also be a form of “mental time travel,” bringing us back to happier, more secure times, he says.
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