Middle-age stress causes weight gain

Middle-age stress causes weight gain
"Middle-age stress causes weight gain
By MARILYN ELIAS, USA TODAY, 3/09/05

Bruising experiences in middle age -- the cruel boss, ill parents, divorce -- cause women to gain weight, and it's not just because they eat more or exercise less, a large study reports Thursday.

'Under stress, people conserve more fat, and we think that may be what's going on here,' says psychologist Tene Lewis of Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.

The study tracks the health and mental health of pre-menopausal women from their 40s through menopause. Researchers asked more than 2,000 women about unhappy life events they had experienced in the past year. They also gathered information on diets, exercise habits, smoking and menstrual periods.

But even after taking into account many factors that could influence weight, four years later the women who faced lots of stress weighed significantly more than the less stressed. The more bad things they reported in the year before the study, the more weight they had gained over the four years, the researchers found.

That doesn't mean diet or exercise don't matter, Lewis says. But the link between personal trouble and weight gain held for all middle-age women, regardless of race, income and education.

Diet also probably played a role in putting on the weight, Epel says. 'You just don't crave carrots when you're stressed. You want comfort foods that are high in fat and sugar.'

Women can't control many typical mid-life stressors, such as ailing parents, she adds. But building strong friendships and developing new goals and priorities often can help curb stress, Epel says.

Exercise also is a great stress reliever, Lewis says, 'and it helps you lose weight, so it's a two-for-one. But whatever relaxation techniques work for you and improve your mood, those are the ones to do at this time of life.'"

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