Summary: A new study reveals the link between loneliness, cravings for high-calorie foods, and unhealthy eating behaviors in women, highlighting a significant brain activity pattern associated with social isolation. The research found that women feeling lonely show increased brain activation in areas related to cravings when exposed to images of sugary foods, alongside decreased self-control towards eating.
These findings underscore the complex interplay between loneliness, mental health, and eating habits, suggesting that recognizing and addressing feelings of loneliness could be key to breaking the cycle of poor diet and mental health outcomes. The study emphasizes the need for holistic interventions focusing on social connections and healthier food choices to mitigate the negative impacts of loneliness on well-being.
Key Facts:
- Women perceiving themselves as lonely exhibit more brain activity in areas associated with cravings for sugary foods and less in those related to self-control, contributing to unhealthy eating habits.
- Loneliness correlates with higher fat mass, lower diet quality, and increased levels of anxiety and depression among the study’s participants.
- The research points to a “vicious cycle” where loneliness leads to cravings and unhealthy eating, which in turn, may worsen mental health symptoms, highlighting the importance of holistic mind-body interventions.
Source: UCLA
A new UCLA Health study has found that women who perceive themselves to be lonely exhibited activity in regions of the brain associated with cravings and motivation towards eating especially when shown pictures of high calorie foods such as sugary foods.
The same group of women also had unhealthy eating behaviors and poor mental health.
Arpana Gupta, PhD, a researcher and co-director of the UCLA Goodman-Luskin Microbiome Center, wanted to research the negative impacts of loneliness, especially as people continue to be working remotely after the COVID-19 pandemic, and how the brain interplays with social isolation, eating habits, and mental health.
While it is established that obesity is linked to depression and anxiety, and that binge-eating is understood to be a coping mechanism against loneliness, Gupta wanted to observe the brain pathways associated with these feelings and behaviors.
“Researching how the brain processes loneliness and how this is related to obesity and health outcomes hasn’t been done,” said Gupta, senior author of the paper, which is published in JAMA Network Open.
The researchers surveyed 93 women about their support system and their feelings of loneliness and isolation, then separated them into two groups: those who scored high on the perceived social isolation scale, and those who scored low.
The researchers found that women who had higher levels of social isolation tended to have higher fat mass, lower diet quality, greater cravings, reward-based eating, and uncontrolled eating, and increased levels of anxiety and depression.
The women were then shown pictures of food versus non-food, sweet food versus non-food and savory food versus non-food. MRI scans recorded the participants’ brain activity while they viewed these images.
The researchers found that the group of women who perceived themselves to be lonely experienced increased activation in regions of the brain associated with a greater cravings to eat sugary foods, and decreased activation in the brain region associated with self-control towards eating behaviors.
“These findings are interesting because it provides evidence for what we intuitively know,” Gupta said. “When people are alone or lonely, it impacts more than how they are feeling; they underreport what they eat, their desire to eat, and their cravings…
Read More: Loneliness, Food Cravings, and the Brain