The Secret To Eating Healthy: Hope, Not Pride Dieticians call it
“emotional eating,” and it’s generally considered to be a bad
thing, because research has shown that people who are feeling
bad eat bad. Or badly, to be correct. Now comes research from
Penn State University suggesting that feeling good can also lead
to eating bad(ly). That happens when we reward ourselves for
something done well, with a candy bar, or perhaps something
stronger. A Penn State news release reports that researchers
studying the complicated relationship between positive emotions
and food consumption have teased out the difference between
positive feelings — pride and happiness — that arise from
thinking about the past or present, and hope, a more future-
oriented emotion. They’ve found that people who focus their
positive emotion toward the future eat less unhealthy food and
have lower preferences for unhealthy snacks than those whose
feelings of pride or happiness are focused on the past. In other
words, if you are expecting to feel