Relationship Between Stress and Weight

I have been thinking a lot lately about the connection between weight management and stress.  I know that I can be a stress eater, meaning as the stress increases I tend to go for comfort food to help me get through it.  A bowl of ice cream, a snickers bar, a can of Pepsi have all been stand ins for that in the past.  What I am wondering is do those who are weight challenged more likely to experience stress, or when stress comes does it have a great negative impact on those of us who are heavier.

Each one of us handles stress in a different way, and we all  know that the same situation effects two different people in different ways as well.  A study by the Department of Public Health Nursing, University of Illinois at Chicago found that in African American women found that stress directly affected their weight control efforts.  But does weight have an affect on stress.

Obviously exercise is used by many as a stress reducer.  Those who are struggling with weight often have a low activity level which in turn means that they are missing out on one key way of managing stress.  It might also be argued that those with weight challenges are at higher risk for high blood pressure, and studies suggest that high blood pressure and stress can go hand in hand.

The most obvious issue however is again what the study above mentioned.  Simply that many of us have developed bad habits when it comes to coping with stress and instead of trying to deal with it in a healthy way we start eating, or neglect exercise, or start drinking (alcohol has high carbs), which all impact weight loss or weight control. 

While we will never be able to remove all stress from our lives, we can learn to manage it, and work through stressful situations in a healthy way.  It is worth the battle