A hit of nearly pure glucose can improve your mood. So does a pure hit of coke and crack. Doesn't mean its advised. The study may not have made it into advice, but the media always will.

From ABCNEWS.com Health Section

April 16
— By Suzanne Rostler

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Feeling tired and stressed out? A new study provides evidence that a bowl of ice cream or mashed potatoes can lift your spirits.

Researchers from the University of Surrey in the UK investigated the effects of eating on mood in 40 women who were either non-emotional or emotional eaters. Emotional eaters tend to eat in response to negative feelings rather than hunger. All women recorded their moods over one day and described how they felt after eating.

Eating was found to lift the spirits of all the women, according to the study, which was presented last month at a meeting of the British Psychological Society in Blackpool, UK. Although emotional eaters reported feeling more hurried, irritated, tired, tense, angry and fearful than non-emotional eaters, there was no difference in the overall effect of food on a person's mood once they had eaten, to the surprise of the study authors.

"We were expecting eating to have a greater effect on mood in the emotional eaters, (which would explain) a means by which people become emotional eaters," Dr. Katherine Appleton told Reuters Health.

The findings suggest that emotional eating does not develop as a result of a greater effect of eating on mood in some individuals and not in others, Appleton said.

"It is perhaps more likely that emotional eating develops as a result of an effect of eating on mood (only) when that effect is required," she said.

Hello :-)

I often think that there is no such thing as emotional eating. People eat when they are hungry. In some of us that is most of the time, because of unstable bloodsugar (unless we are on LC)and I think that more emotional people think they eat because they are more emotional, but in actual fact their emotions causes stress and stress stimulates insulin ... and that triggers hunger and that more often than not results in eating.

Do I have it all wrong?

Rey

Most of biology's processes for survival are connected to reward-pleasure/pain responses. Eating is going to raise dopamine and seratonin as part of the reward. There is a greater response to sugar then other foods. (Obviousally it is greater with sugar for a reason in that sugar must be effective at whatever the bodys goal is in eating). This is where hard-core drugs mess with the system, providing a chemical level of award that should never happen naturally. Anyhow, a sugary-starchy food is no different. It doesn't really occur naturally (few modern exceptions). Emotional Eaters are hungry, thats why there eating. Perhaps they are below there natural weight. Reaching ones natural weight provides physical confort (although not psychological comfort in most cases). I've never seen mice in a cage being called emotional mice because they eat too much. Biologists try to study the obesity problem from a scientific perspective, and not assuming that the cause is emotional eating or eating too much. And because of this, we are learning about chemical systems nobody knew existed.

Take it from an emotional eater. I wasn't physically hungry when I was stuffing my face with doughnuts and chocolate...I was stressed/angry/sad/lonely (take your pick). There's a reason that many foods are called "comfort foods"...because people often find comfort in eating them whether they are hungry or not. Personally, I think a lot of emotional eaters are not eating because they are physically hungry, but because they are emotionally or spiritually hungry and are trying to feed that hunger the only way they know how...with food.