Preference for high/low calorie food dependant on mood, personality traits and perceived stress

Abstract

Objectives: To see if Mood (PANAS-X ‘sadness’ and ‘fatigue’), Personality traits (‘conscientiousness’ and ‘openness’) and Perceived Stress had an effect on preference for high calorie, fatty foods/low calorie, low fat foods. Method: Sixty participants aged between 18-49 were tested for scores on Mood, Personality and Perceived Stress scales which were then correlated with scores that participants gave when rating 24 food images of; 12 high calorie, fatty foods and 12 low calorie, low fat food images. Results: High scores for Sadness were related to higher rating scores for the high calorie, fatty food images (p = .002). Conclusions: Sadness is linked to a preference for high calorie, fatty foods. The negative affect of this mood (sadness) leads to a craving for the high calorie, fatty foods, which results in a higher rate of consumption of these types of food.