The time of obesity
Scientists have clarified the mental mechanism of food addiction
Psychological factors of the development of food addiction during the pandemic were investigated by Vyatka scientists as part of a research team. According to them, people who are psychologically focused on the past or present and prefer short-term planning, the risk of food addiction turned out to be higher than people who are focused on the future. The results are published in the journal Eating and Weight Disorders (Borisenkov et al., Association between food addiction and time perspective during COVID-19 isolation).
Food addiction is a pathological tendency to overly abundant nutrition, the probability of which, according to scientists, greatly increases against the background of stress. Specialists of Vyatka State University together with other Russian scientists investigated the relationship between food addiction during isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic and the so-called "psychological time perspective".
This concept means an emotionally colored psychological "binding" of a person to his own future, present or past. According to the researchers, the time perspective characteristic of a particular person is not only an important factor in the formation of behavior, but also a reliable indicator of psychological well–being and some disorders.
"We assumed that in a pandemic, people with a "future" time perspective would not be at risk of developing addiction, unlike those who focus only on the present or the negative past. These categories of people showed a noticeable increase in food addiction during the period of isolation. The practical conclusion from the study for ordinary people can be formulated as follows: make long–term plans for your life – this is the key to your psychological well-being," said the project manager, senior researcher at the Institute of Physiology FITZ Komi NC UrO RAS (Syktyvkar) Mikhail Borisenkov.
Thanks to the analysis of the survey data, scientists for the first time described the relationship between the type of time perspective and food addiction. According to experts, a shortened time horizon is associated with an increased risk of addictions, while a focus on the future or a balanced attitude to all three aspects of psychological time, on the contrary, reduces this danger.
During the isolation of the pandemic, scientists recorded an increase in the frequency of detection of food addiction by 68 percent. According to the researchers, these data are consistent with the growth rates of other types of addictions – Internet addiction, alcohol, drug addiction.
As the Vyatka scientists explained, the results obtained are of great scientific importance for the study of eating disorders. In addition, they make it possible to adapt psychological therapy methods based on the correction of time perspective to the prevention of food addiction.
"Obesity prevention is one of the priorities of the strategic project "Health Technologies" of the Vyatka State University development program for 2021-2030. We are developing new technologies for functional food products based on the application of food 3D printing. This approach will help strengthen self–control of eating behavior," said Ekaterina Martinson, Director of the Institute of Biology and Biotechnology at Vyatka State University.
The study was conducted by scientists from Vyatka State University (VyatSU), the Institute of Physiology of the Komi National Research Center of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Ural Federal University (UrFU), Tyumen State Medical University (TSMU), Tyumen Cardiology Research Center.
In the future, scientists plan to expand the sample and geography of the study, as well as to study the physiological mechanisms of the described phenomenon.
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