Life stress can disrupt interactions between your gut and brain, making you more likely to crave and consume high calorie food, new research suggests.

The way life circumstances shape eating behaviours explored by two new papers published today.

The first study looked at the impact of social factors like income, education, healthcare access and biological aspects.

It found stress from life circumstances can disrupt the brain-gut-microbiome balance, which alters mood, decision-making and hunger signals.

These disruptions, they found, increase the likelihood of individuals craving and consuming high-calorie foods. 

Meanwhile, the second paper found that over a third of adults with gut-brain disorders screened positive for avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (AFRID).

According to the NHS, AFRID is when someone avoids certain foods, limits how much they eat, or does both. 

Now experts are calling for routine screening for avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder and integrated nutritional care. 

New research suggests life stress could be behind why we crave unhealthy food and overeat

Official figures revealed nearly two-thirds of adults in England are overweight 

Their findings were published in the journals Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology and Gastroenterology.

It’s not the first time the link has been made between stress and poor food choices. 

In 2021, researchers from Australia and New Zealand surveyed 137 adults about their eating habits, feelings of tension and food cravings over the course of one week.

The subjects reported craving more food—and eating both more junk food but also more overall—the more tension they were experiencing on a given day.

Stress, the researchers added, also influences ‘the types of foods that individuals consume—with both stressed individuals and emotional eaters often seeking palatable energy-dense food and drinks that are high in sugar and/or saturated and trans fats.’

Emotional eaters, they explained, are those who tend of overeat in response to negative emotions — in particular, when confronted with anxiety.

Previous research has also shown healthy bacteria in your gut can be key to tackling stress.

There are hopes that better understanding the impact of stress could help tackle the nation’s obesity crisis. 

This map highlights the areas most blighted by obesity

It comes amid a worrying rise in obesity in the UK that has left health chiefs deeply worried.

Official figures revealed nearly two-thirds of adults in England are overweight, and more than a quarter—an estimated 14 million people—are obese.

The obesity crisis costs the NHS more than £11 billion a year—and the economy billions more—in lost productivity and benefits.

As well as treating obese patients, who may suffer from a range of life-threatening health complications, the money has also been spent on various NHS programmes to help people lose weight.

In response, earlier this summer the government allowed GPs to prescribe weight loss jabs for the first time.