For disappointed sports fans, defeats increase consumption of fat and sugar
On the Monday following a big football game, fans of the losing team seem to load up on saturated fats and sugars, whereas supporters of the winning team opt for healthier foods, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
“Although prior studies had shown that sport outcomes influence reckless driving, heart attacks, and even domestic violence, no one had examined how they influence eating,” says Yann Cornil, researcher at INSEAD Business School and lead author of the study.
By comparing the outcomes from two seasons’ worth of NFL games with people’s food consumption in over two dozen cities, Cornil and INSEAD professor Pierre Chandon were able to determine the amounts and types of food consumed after victories and losses.
“The data also allowed us to look at people living in cities without an NFL team or with a team that didn’t play on that particular day, providing us with two control samples,” Cornil and Chandon explain.
Overall, they found that people in cities with a losing football team ate about 16% more saturated fat compared to their usual Monday consumption. People in cities with a winning football team, on the other hand, ate about 9% less saturated fat compared to their usual consumption. These trends held even when people who weren’t football fans were included in the sample, and the trends were particularly noticeable when a game came down to the wire.
“People eat better when their football team wins and worse when it loses, especially if they lost unexpectedly, by a narrow margin, or against a team of equal strength,” Cornil and Chandon note.
The researchers hypothesized that, when a favorite team loses, people feel an identity threat and are more likely to use eating as a coping mechanism. Winning, on the other hand, seems to provide a boost to people’s self control.
To test these associations experimentally, the researchers asked a group of French participants to write about a time when their favorite team lost or won. In a later, seemingly unrelated task, the people who wrote about their team losing opted to eat chips and candy over healthier grapes and tomatoes. The group who wrote about winning, on the other hand, preferred the healthier options.
So what does this mean for all those fervent fans who root for teams that don’t exactly have a winning record?
It is essential to have a small amount of fat in the diet (up to 30% of the calories we eat should come from fat), to protect our body and keep it warm, for essential fatty acids that the body can’t make and for absorbing some vitamins. However, we should eat fat-containing foods sparingly as fats contain high amounts of energy which is stored if it’s not used up. Fats can be separated into different categories: saturated, unsaturated and trans fats.
Saturated fat
Saturated fats are found in many food products such as sausages, pies, butter, ghee, cream, crème fraîche, ice-cream, cheese, pastries, cakes and biscuits, some savoury snacks, some sweet snacks, chocolate, coconut oil, coconut cream and palm oil.
We should limit the amount of saturated fat in the diet, because eating too much can increase the risk of developing heart disease.
Unsaturated fat
Unsaturated fats are divided into monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats. Neither is associated with the risk of heart disease like saturated fat, but they are still high in calories so eating too much can lead to weight gain. We should try to consume a higher proportion of unsaturated than saturated fats in our diet.
Some unsaturated fats in the diet provide essential fatty acids that the body can’t produce, like the omega-3 fatty acids from fish oils and omega-6 fatty acids from vegetable oils.
Foods rich in unsaturated fat include oily fish, avocados, nuts and seeds, sunflower, rapeseed, olive and vegetable oils, and spreads made from these.
Trans fats
Trans fats tend to be found in processed foods such as cakes, biscuits, pastries and crisps. These types of fats are hard for the body to deal with and are linked to a higher risk of heart disease, so they are best avoided. Look out for ‘hydrogenated vegetable oil’ or ‘partially hydrogenated vegetable oil’ on the list of ingredients.
“Even if you are rooting for a perennial loser, there is a solution if you are concerned about healthy eating: After a defeat, write down what is really important to you in life,” Cornil and Chandon suggest. “In our studies, this simple technique, called ‘self affirmation,’ completely eliminated the effects of defeats.”
The researchers are continuing to investigate factors that influence people’s eating behavior even if they’re not aware of them, particularly those factors that are under the control of food marketers, like package design and food claims.
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The APS journal Psychological Science is the highest ranked empirical journal in psychology. For a copy of the article “From Fan to Fat?: Vicarious Losing Increases Unhealthy Eating, but Self-Affirmation Is an Effective Remedy” and access to other Psychological Science research findings, please contact Anna Mikulak at 202-293-9300 or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
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Anna Mikulak
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
202-293-9300
Association for Psychological Science