A small study of 93 women found that those who felt lonely or socially isolated also had altered activity in specific regions of the brain responsible for food cravings and higher motivation towards wanting to eat sugary foods. Women with those neural responses also reported having unhealthy eating habits and poor mental health.
“Loneliness is an entirely subjective state and doesn’t necessarily rely on the quantity of one’s social relations,” they added. “When mental health disorders affect an individual’s capacity to self-regulate emotional well-being, binge eating behaviors may emerge as a coping mechanism to combat the negative effect perceived during prolonged periods of social isolation.”
To further investigate the association between loneliness and obesity, Arpana Gupta, a researcher and co-director of the UCLA Goodman-Luskin Microbiome Center, and colleagues recruited 93 women based in Los Angeles, California. The team then collected each participant’s data which included their body mass index , dietary preferences and habits, socio-economic status, race, age, and ethnicity. The women were aged 18 to 50 years old. While 59% identified as Mexican, the other 41% were Filipino.
The women participants who self-reported feeling lonely or socially isolated had higher fat mass, were eating lower quality food, and were more likely to have cravings for unhealthy food and experience episodes of uncontrolled eating.