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Illustration of what comfort food says about you.

Comfort food is often considered a taste of home, a gentle reminder of a time when we were cared for, and our food was prepared for us in our childhood kitchen.

Delicacies vary depending on region, but one thing is certain, pizza is America's favorite comfort food. In fact, about 25 percent of people would choose pizza over any other food. Unsurprising, considering pizza is warm and soft, both of which are considered sensory comforts.

In this post, we explore the factors that affect the comfort food we crave, why we crave it, and how it makes us feel after-the-fact.

The Psychology of Comfort Food

A study by the International Journal of Gastronomy and Food Science states "one important trigger leading to the consumption of comfort foods occurs when people experience negative emotions".

We surveyed 1,000 Americans to find out just how many people are driven to comfort food as a result of positive versus negative emotions. The most surprising result? The drivers of different eating behaviors and how the psychological impact varies most between genders.

Comfort Food Cravings by Gender

The top reasons men eat comfort food include happiness, accomplishment, and tiredness. Women, on the other hand, choose to eat comfort food because of sadness, stress, and loneliness.

Illustration of a man and woman sitting at a table craving foods for different reasons.

These results are further explained in a survey by Cornell. It details how the males associate this type of food with being cared for, where women often see it as prep and cleanup.

Why People Eat Comfort Food

A study by the head of the Crossmodal Research group, Charles Spence, explains that people associate comfort food with home cooking, with the appeal linked to a specific person or time we associate as positive.

Pie chart depicting the reasons that people crave comfort food.

However, the results of our study conclude that only 5 percent of people eat comfort food because they're homesick. In reality, the majority of pollers, about 32 percent, eat this type of food in response to stress in their lives.

The Garvan Institute of Medical Research indicates that prolonged stress can lead to the absence of detecting insulin which therefore promotes eating high-calorie foods.

Does Comfort Food Make You Happier?

Nearly 75 percent of people who completed the survey described positive emotional effects after eating comfort food. These include emotions like relaxation, neutrality, and happiness—synonymous with reports in Volume 31 of Appetite that eating high-calorie foods releases opiates and serotonin.

Three illustrations depicting different genders and data about how they feel after eating.

Taking the results of how respondents were feeling prior to eating the specific food, it may explain the decision to pick up a slice on the way home. Men may behave in a way that's rewarding themselves after an accomplishment, whereas women may be responding to the negative emotions by trying to counteract them with something that provides comfort.

In either case, the majority of those who reported feeling neutral after eating their food of choice were men. In contrast, the majority of those who felt guilty afterward were women. 43 and 49 percent, respectively.

Body image studies like "Gender Differences in Body Image Are Increasing" by Yale's Alan Feingold have found that "female ideals of thinness have intensified to such a degree as to be nearly unattainable, and to a lesser degree, masculine ideals have become more salient", which may be revealed in these results.

So what can we gather from this survey? In general, there is a neutral-positive reaction after eating these nostalgic dishes. Certainly, there isn't much difference in the type of food we crave, but there are significant emotional attributions that determine why we eat certain foods and how it affects the mental state.

We see this most in the cravings stage, where men are typically reaching for the pizza as a means of rewarding themselves and women are grabbing a slice as an inhibitor to their loneliness. These associations could have been created during childhood in a time where roles in the kitchen were less diverse, and a woman's role was in the kitchen while a man's was to bring home the bacon. Then again, the study could indicate that men simply have a complex about admitting they have psychological turmoil.

Methodology:

This study was conducted in December 2019 using Google Consumer Surveys. The sample consisted of no less than 1,000 completed responses per question. Post-stratification weighting has been applied to ensure an accurate and reliable representation of the total population.

Fair Use Statement:

Want to use this study? Give credit where credit is due—our findings are free to use for non-commercial purposes. We simply ask that you link to this page and attribute Kitchen Cabinet Kings appropriately.

Sources: Science Direct | Cornell | Science Daily | Psychological Science

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