Stress Induced Eating Stress appears constantly in daily life. Living in a fast-paced environment where everything is needed or wanted in an instant. Between having a family, going to school, and working one or more jobs there are many things in life that can cause stress to a person. In a world where you constantly have to multitask to keep up, stress is a fact of life. With everything our bodies have to deal with on a regular basis, excessive stress is not a good thing to have. Now people deal with stress in many different ways, but most of us like to eat when we're stressed, regardless of why we're stressed. Our body deals with stress in many ways, including releasing certain hormones that increase or decrease our appetite and can also cause us to become addicted to food by activating our reward system. Now, when our hormones or reward systems are activated, our bodies tend to seek out food to comfort us, which then leads to why stress eating can lead to obesity. Since people react to stress differently, do men and women react to stress differently? Do men and women choose different types of food to eat when they are stressed? According to Nowson (2007), stress can be defined as “the body's generalized, nonspecific response to any factor that overwhelms, or threatens to overwhelm, the body's capabilities.” compensatory abilities to maintain homeostasis" (p. 887). There are different types of stressors that can cause a stress response. There are chemical stressors, physical stressors, psychological stressors, or emotional stressors, physiological and social stressors. Chemical stressors are any stressors that affect chemical balance, which includes acid-base imbalance and reduced oxygen supply. Physical s...... middle of paper ...... Amanda., Zellner, Dedra A. (2006). Changes in food selection under stress. Retrieved from http://dx. doi.org/10.1016/j.physbeh.2006.01.014 Nowson, Caryl A., Torres, Susan J. (2007). Relationship between stress, diet, behavior and obesity, volume 23 (number 11-12), pages 887-894. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nut.2007.08.008 Oliver, Georgina., Wardle, Jane (1999). Physiology and Behavior, volume 66 (number 3), pages 511-515. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0031-9384(98)00322-9 Rolls, Barbara J., Shide, David J., Suzanne E., Weinstein. (1997). Changes in food intake in response to stress in men and women: Psychological factors. Appetite, volume 28 (number 1), pages 7-18. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/appe.1996.0056