By Kim Jae-heun
Catherine Lee has been suffering a lot of stress lately from job seeking.
On her way back home from school one day, she ordered three delivery meals.
She also stopped by a convenience store near her home to grab her favorite snacks, and ate them all before the delivery food arrived.
Lee eats excessively to relieve her stress. She has been overeating like this for a long time.
“I think most women do not want to stress out on other people. Overeating is one of the most peaceful ways to deal with stress,” Lee, who is 24 years old, said.
In a 2017 episode of “Saturday Night Live,” comedian Tina Fey devoured a cake after asking what people can do when they feel anxious and stressed out.
Overindulging in food and drinks to relieve stress is common, but more so among female students than men, according to research by the Korea Food Forum (KOFRUM).
KOFRUM conducted a study with Lee Sang-hee, a psychology professor at Kwangwoon University, on how each gender relieves stress.
They surveyed 244 male and 231 female students at universities in the Seoul metropolitan area.
Most men and women choose to eat to manage and reduce their stress.
Rachel Goldman, a professor at New York University School of Medicine, said this is called stress eating, which is different from binge eating.
The big difference between the two is stress eating, albeit “impulsive, is not followed by guilt,” she said in an interview with CNN.
Other options for de-stressing include exercising, meditating and drinking, the KOFRUM survey showed.
But students preferred overeating, or emotional eating, over these other options when it comes to de-stressing.
And women excessively eat more than men.
“Female students tend to cope with the essential cause of their stress less actively than male students. Eating excessively seemingly helps women to escape from their problems at hand,” Prof. Lee said in the survey report.
He added women go for sweets when they are in stress. They also try to seek social help to cope.
Men, on the other hand, try to find the root cause of their stress and figure out a way to change their situation, the professor said.
“There are studies that show stress contributes to people's mindless eating and hinders their ordinary diet routine.”