The time-varying association between perceived stress and hunger within and between days

Abstract

Objective Examine the association between perceived stress and hunger continuously over a week in free-living individuals. Methods Forty five young adults (70% women, 30% overweight/obese) ages 18 to 24 years (Mean = 20.7, SD = 1.5), with BMI between 17.4 and 36.3 kg/m2 (Mean = 23.6, SD = 4.0) provided between 513 and 577 concurrent ratings of perceived stress and hunger for 7 days via hourly, text messaging assessments and real-time eating records. Time-varying effect modeling was used to explore whether the within-day fluctuations in stress are related to perceived hunger assessed on a momentary basis. Results A generally positive stress–hunger relationship was confirmed, but we found that the strength of the relationship was not linear. Rather, the magnitude of the association between perceived stress and hunger changed throughout the day such that only during specific time intervals were stress and hunger significantly related. Specifically, the strength of the positive association peaked during late afternoon hours on weekdays (β = 0.31, p < .05) and it peaked during evening hours on weekend days (β = 0.56, p < .05). Conclusion This is the first empirical study to demonstrate potentially maladaptive, nonlinear stress–hunger associations that peak in the afternoon or evening hours. While we are unable to infer causality from these analyses, our findings provide empirical evidence for a potentially high-risk time of day for stress-induced eating. Replication of these findings in larger, more diverse samples will aid with the design and implementation of real-time intervention studies aimed at reducing stress-eating.

High perceived stress is associated with unfavorable eating behavior in overweight and obese Finns of working age

“…To the best of our knowledge, the weekday-weekend fluctuation has not been studied related to stress-driven eating. Some indication of this could however be seen in two earlier studies with students, in which no differences were observed between weekdays and weekend days in the association between perceived stress and hunger (Huh, Shiyko, Keller, Dunton, & Schembre, 2015) or between the number of daily hassles and the number of snacks consumed (Conner, Fitter, & Fletcher, 1999).…”

It's craving time: time of day effects on momentary hunger and food craving in daily life

“…To close this gap, we employed EMA in a naturalistic study of hunger and craving. We hypothesized that subjective hunger ratings exhibit two clear circadian peaks, approximately around midday and evening meal times (Huh, Shiyko, Keller, Dunton, & Schembre, 2015;Mattes, 1990). Furthermore, some incidental evidence indicates that cravings gain prominence during afternoon and early evening (Pelchat, 1997), leading to the expectations that concordance between hunger and craving will drop during those times.…”

The Relationship between Stress and Severe Obesity: A Case-Control Study

“…Huh et al [19] studied when hunger and stress are greatest during the day. These researchers found that high levels of hunger and stress were somewhat associated with afternoon and evening hours.…”