Stress can affect anyone’s waistline and the tension of being in a serious relationship is no different.
Love can be blind, but also fattening, according to a new study that shows women are more apt to pile on excess pounds after marriage, while men add the weight after a divorce.
Both men and women who divorced or married were more likely than never-married people to have a small weight gain in the two years following their marital transition, according to the study.
In most cases, the weight gain was minor and not a serious health threat.
But the risk of incurring a large weight gain was higher among men after a divorce and among women after getting married.
Dmitry Tumin, a doctoral student in sociology at Ohio State University, explains: “Clearly, the effect of marital transitions on weight changes differs by gender.
Divorces for men and, to some extent, marriages for women promote weight gains that may be large enough to pose a health risk.
As you get older, having a sudden change in your life like a marriage or a divorce is a bigger shock than it would have been when you were younger, and that can really impact your weight.”
His team looked at weight gain in the two years following a marriage or divorce among more than 10,000 people in the U.S. surveyed from 1986 to 2008.
The researchers also found that people over age 30 were most likely to gain weight after marriage or divorce, and the risk grew stronger as people grew older.
This may be because they’ve settled into certain patterns of diet and physical activity, the researchers said.
Zhenchao Qian and sociology professor who contributed to the study continues: “Married women often have a larger role around the house than men do, and they may have less time to exercise and stay fit than similar unmarried women.
“On the other hand, studies show that married men get a health benefit from marriage, and they lose that benefit once they get divorced, which may lead to their weight gain.”
Tumin and Qian used data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth ‘79, a nationally representative sample of men and women aged 14 to 22 in 1979. The same people were surveyed every year up to 1994 and every other year since then.
The researchers took into account a wide variety of other factors that may influence weight gain or loss, including pregnancy for women, poverty, socioeconomic status and education.
There are several ways in which stress can contribute to weight gain. One has to do with cortisol, a stress hormone. When we’re under stress, the fight or flight response is triggered in our bodies, leading to the release of various hormones.
Whether we’re stressed because of constant, crazy demands at work or we’re really in danger, our bodies respond like we’re about to be harmed and need to fight for our lives.
To answer this need, we experience a burst of energy, shifts in metabolism and blood flow, and other changes. If one remains in this state for a prolonged amount of time due to chronic stress, your health becomes at risk.
Aside from a host of other dangers, chronic stress can also cause weight gain, which is why some products like Cortislim are marketed as diet aids.
