From Fan to Fat? Vicarious Losing Increases Unhealthy Eating, but Self-Affirmation Is an Effective Remedy

Abstract

Using archival and experimental data, we showed that vicarious defeats experienced by fans when their favorite football team loses lead them to consume less healthy food. On the Mondays following a Sunday National Football League (NFL) game, saturated-fat and food-calorie intake increase significantly in cities with losing teams, decrease in cities with winning teams, and remain at their usual levels in comparable cities without an NFL team or with an NFL team that did not play. These effects are greater in cities with the most committed fans, when the opponents are more evenly matched, and when the defeats are narrow. We found similar results when measuring the actual or intended food consumption of French soccer fans who had previously been asked to write about or watch highlights from victories or defeats of soccer teams. However, these unhealthy consequences of vicarious defeats disappear when supporters spontaneously self-affirm or are given the opportunity to do so.

Mere experience of low subjective socioeconomic status stimulates appetite and food intake

“…Even acute and intermittent experiences of subordination and lowered status have been identified to increase energy intake and adiposity over time (21), suggesting that the experience of subordinate status itself may alter appetite independent of other stressors associated with low status (e.g., obstruction of food, harassment and aggression from dominants). Paralleling findings from animal models, research on humans has also suggested that inequality and reminders of potential deprivation of material, social, and symbolic resources may contribute to increased valuation and intake of calories (24)(25)(26)(27). These outcomes may typically be attributed to disinhibitory effects of ego and self-concept threats or stress.…”

The effect of emotional state on taste perception

“…All united under a common cause, a unique group dynamic allow fans see their team as an extension of themselves, where they place a great deal of emotional significance on the success or failure of their team (Hirt, Zillmann, Erickson, & Kennedy, 1992). In a competitive sports setting, victory or defeat induces a wide variety of emotional reactions among fans, ranging from shame, disgust, sadness, anger, and frustration to hope, happiness, surprise, and pride (Cornil & Chandon, 2013). Team success will usually generate positive affect, while failure will induce highly negative affect among fans.…”

Spontaneous self-affirmation is associated with psychological well-being: Evidence from a US national adult survey sample

“…Some studies have provided initial evidence that spontaneous self-affirmation might promote physical and mental health. For instance, sports fans who spontaneously self-affirmed after their favored team lost consumed fewer calories than those who did not (Cornil and Chandon, 2013), spontaneous self-affirmation buffered against anticipated negative affect in the context of seeking threatening genomic information , and cancer survivors who wrote essays with more spontaneous self-affirmations reported fewer physical health symptoms 3-months later (Creswell et al, 2007).Two studies have linked spontaneous self-affirmation to increased openness to a psychologically-threatening message (Townsend and Sood, 2012;Pietersma and Dijkstra, 2012). Using a nationallyrepresentative data set (the Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS), the same one used for the current study), spontaneous self-affirmation was associated with better perceived communication with and quality of care from health care providers and greater health information seeking (Taber et al, 2015a), and with lower likelihood of cognitive impairment, greater happiness and hopefulness, greater self-efficacy for getting health information, and greater likelihood of seeking information about cancer among cancer survivors (Taber et al, 2015b).…”