An unhappy mood is likely to make for an unhealthy meal.
Volunteers who had just written about a sad experience ate about
four times more candy than those who wrote about a happy event.
But a related study showed that when nutritional information was
displayed, sad people were better able to control unhealthy
intake. And "research suggests that awareness of the effect of
emotions on our behaviors can help in curbing their influence,"
says Nitika Garg, assistant professor of marketing at the
University of Mississippi. Those who feel low, she adds, may
benefit from "preplating" a portion of food instead of eating
out of a container.