Myth Buster: Binge-Eating After Break-Up Doesn’t Lead To Weight Gain, Says Study

If you think that the tub of ice-cream or a kitchen full of junk food that you devoured on after a painful breakup is the reason why you gained weight, here a reality check for you. A new study is breaking the conception that even though emotional turmoil results in binge-eating but does not lead to weight gain in general.

Researchers have earlier established that food becomes a comfort zone for people trying to cope up with sadness and negative feeling that leads to unhealthy food choices.

“...our research showed that while it’s possible people may drown their sorrows in ice cream for a day or two, modern humans do not tend to gain weight after a breakup,” said study author Marissa Harrison, Associate Professor at Penn State University in the US and reported IANS

For the study, published in the Journal of the Evolutionary Studies Consortium, the researchers conducted two studies to test the notion that people gain weight after a relationship break-up.

In the first one, the researchers surveyed 581 who had recently gone through a breakup and whether they gained or lost weight within a year of the breakup. The second study was rather comprehensive one where the participants were asked, that included all kinds of questions about their ex-partner, how committed the relationship was, who initiated the breakup, and how much participants loved eating.

The results of the study showed, majority of participants -- 65.13 per cent -- reported no change in weight after relationship dissolution.

The second study found that only women who already had a tendency for emotional eating did gain weight after a relationship breakup. But it wasn’t common.