Sarah mentioned yesterday that there are some healthy foods that work as mood elevators, but those foods aren't necessarily what people turn to when they're feeling low. A new study calculated that people who are sad "eat larger amounts of foods they consider tasty, but unhealthy."
The trial was put on by researchers at the University of Mississippi, who invited participants to watch either a tearful romance, Love Story, or a romantic comedy, Sweet Home Alabama, and monitored the amount of buttered, salted popcorn they ate. Unhappy viewers, those watching Love Story, are 28 percent more than their Reese Witherspoon-watching counterparts. A second experiment drove the point even further home by demonstrating that students reading about a tragedy (accidental deaths caused by a fire, not the Greek sort) were 4 times more likely to reach for M&Ms than raisins when both were set out as options.
It is certainly something to keep in mind the next time you're heading to the theater and are wondering whether to get popcorn and candy or skip the snack bar altogether.
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