Global concern with weight management is on the rise as people lead increasingly sedentary lifestyles, often working long hours at stressful jobs and consuming processed food for the sake of convenience. This is a trend that shows no signs of slowing down. Research on weight management has increased in recent years, as countries from both the Global North and South record rises in the number of overweight and obese people. The global prevalence of overweight and obesity reached 2.1 billion in 2013, surpassing those estimated to be underweight. Chronic weight gain from stress, being overweight, and obesity, making further research on the relationship between stress and weight gain a matter of importance for health. The implications are vast as the effects of excess weight are both individual and societal.
Therefore, understanding which strategies are most effective for the management of stress to lose weight and to maintain a healthy weight is crucial. Some situations lead to overeating as people use food for emotional regulation, and in particular, for stress relief. It has been shown that over half the global population is prone to overeat or chooses comfort food under stress. Stress can also lead to impulsive decisions. Another route through which stress leads to weight gain is through the dysregulation of eating patterns via the promotion of ’emotional eating,’ where eating is used as a coping strategy for dealing with negative emotions. Thus, there are two clear points of entry into the relationship between psychological stress and weight gain or being obese via the disruption of normal eating patterns and through the possible increase in calorie consumption induced by the drive to use food as a reward in these situations.
Obesity continues to be a public health problem, and understanding the relationship between stress and weight gain could inform more effective weight-loss treatment development strategies. There are numerous studies that suggest a relationship between stress, both perceived and hormonal, and subsequent weight gain. Apocalyptic statistics on the prevalence of obesity and the physical and mental health risks associated with excess weight are often discussed features of television talk shows, magazines, news reports, and newspaper articles. The growing bank of information about increasing rates of obesity and the physical and psychological dangers of excess body weight reflects the intense societal alarm surrounding this health crisis. The news about the health risks of excess weight is often sensationalized in an effort to arrest the growing prevalence of excessive poundage. It’s like preaching the dangers of smoking and why you should quit, with the expectation that unless we spread the word surrounding the health risks of obesity, it will continue to grow with just as much speed and devastation.
Stress also seems to be important when discussing and treating obesity, both in the general population and in children. However, the relationship between stress and obesity is not as well understood as are the devastating physical health effects of carrying extra weight. The relationship between stress and obesity is multidimensional and encompasses issues of how stress can affect both the way we eat (eating behaviors) as well as the way our body metabolizes food in specific body systems (metabolic processes). A perspective of the relationship between stress and eating is particularly worthy of attention for several reasons: there are issues of children learning to eat, socialization patterns built on shared family meals, people suffering from disordered eating and eating disorders, and the widespread problem of chronic overeating that contributes to obesity. Psychologists, physicians, nutrition professionals, exercise specialists, nurses, and those who seek to develop healthy public policy have posed questions about the way in which stress can lead to or increase excessive eating. A recent study investigating weight loss strategies for severely obese adults revealed that chronic stress was a primary reason some individuals reported loss of control or impulsive eating. An improved understanding of the relationship between stress and obesity could inform the development of more effective strategies to prevent excessive weight gain from stress. This discussion on stress and childhood obesity takes a step back to historical perspectives provided by previous research literature in the hope of situating current work in a way that advances empirical understanding and, simultaneously, potentially alleviates stress related to issues of stigmatization and evidence-based weight management. Additionally, throughout, the multidimensional effects of chronic stress—which impact both levels of corticotropin-releasing hormone and cortisol and the body’s systemic responses—are explored. This exploration is expressed in the form of research questions, and the tables present information relative to these questions. Finally, data is interpreted as it aligns with evidence-informed weight management.
The purpose of this article is to explore the relationship between stress and weight gain and potential physiological mechanisms that might underlie this connection. Moreover, it aims to present strategies that effectively support stress management and weight loss. Management of stress due to chronic burden can contribute to not only the theoretical discussion, for example, in the realm of psychosomatics, psychology, and sociology, but also can be highly relevant for health professionals and individuals working in the field of health and wellness. Interest in obese individuals who undergo weight loss procedures is even higher due to their increased risk of cardiovascular diseases and metabolic syndromes. The main goal of body weight reduction is usually and predominantly health-related, whereas psychological well-being, life satisfaction, and health-related quality of life are also stressed dimensions of health improvement. The implementation of humanistic, preventive-oriented, and comprehensive research results, translated into pro-health education and lifelong learning, that apply effective stress management for weight loss and resilience-enhancing strategies, as well as developing a holistic life attitude, is doubtlessly beneficial for global health and local socio-economic development.
The phenomena of chronic stress and overweight, obesity-related health problems, and negative mental health is significantly increasing in Poland and other countries, both developed and developing, for adults, youths, and children. If one perceives the individual and their life situation in the complex and comprehensive perception of health and its determinants, it is useful to implement research on selected components, i.e., the aspects related to stress management and weight loss, regarding the possibility of creating conditions for the harmonious development of the individual in the socio-biopsychosocial process. This research will help to develop innovative prospective programs in the field of health education, preventive social work, as well as curative and rehabilitative activities towards participants. It will permit preliminary screening of overweight participants and contribute to compliance with the guidelines in the field of diet therapy. The above required the identification of specific effective stress management for weight loss and coping strategies, and the affirmation of the relationship between overweight and life stress in the dietetic literature. It is a determinant of the purpose of this research to reveal these relationships. It should be noted that stress accompanied by suffering may contribute to pathological long-term processes referred to as distress in the positive therapy domain. These, in turn, may result in sympathetic nervous system reactivity, inflammation, and hormonal imbalance, which might interfere with weight and the full-body composition regulation. It seems, however, that this topic remains ambiguous and has scope for an extended discussion.
As far back as six decades ago, researchers began to document that adding repeated psychological stress to rats’ lives increased the size of their stress and belly fat deposits. Intriguingly, this effect was most pronounced not in developed tissues like muscle—where the extra calories from “comfort eating” might be burned off—but in two places relatively unused for such short-term “emergency” purposes: the abdomen and around internal organs. We now know that this kind of chronic stress can—and often does—play a similar role in the growing obesity epidemic among humans. Below we can explore the underlying reasons behind why weight gain from stress in the first place.
From a physiological standpoint, this relationship makes a fair amount of sense. One of the defining features of stress is the activation of the body’s “fight or flight” response. The hormones secreted during this process—like adrenaline, noradrenaline, and especially cortisol—elevate blood sugar to provide quick energy. However, this also increases sugary and fatty food flow into fat stores and away from lean tissue. At the same time, interleukin-1 and leptin work together to tell the body to hold on to its fat and stymie the brain’s feeling of fullness. Insulin, which regulates blood sugar, remains persistently high. When combined with high levels of leptin, a key curb to hunger, this can create resistance to its appetite-suppressing effects. Altogether, “fight or flight” function promotes appetite gain rather than suppression and encourages stress and belly fat to be stocked rather than burned. The conversion also causes an increase in the accumulation of fat cells and a decrease in energy harvested from one’s existing fat reserves. In order to increase body weight, better known as “putting on fat,” fat cells themselves grow bigger.
Increased availability of food has continued to shape the modern environment as the exploration of the world and production of food have become more sophisticated. Nevertheless, the prominence of stress has remained consistent, and pressures continue to mount as new challenges arise. Stress elicits physiological responses that are not conducive to overall health, exemplified by the deleterious impact on various health outcomes. In regard to body weight particularly, chronic stress has been linked to increased fat accumulation and a higher prevalence of obesity. At the core of the issue is the fact that the body’s biological urge for food is directly linked to physiological changes that occur during stressful situations. Evidence suggests that stress-inducing experiences contribute to a decrease in the ability to control food intake. Consequently, stress is not only a contributing factor to weight gain and ultimately obesity but is also a likely outcome of living with excess body fat. Therefore, it is important to acknowledge the mutual relationship stress shares with weight management and the possibility that when directing weight loss and weight gain efforts, attention should be paid to the overall reduction in stress. Set in this context, the present paper sought to explore the interplay between stress and appetite control, and more specifically, the potential link to weight gain from stress.
Stress is recognized as a state of psychological and emotional strain, often accompanied by physiological responses such as increased heart rate and blood pressure. When the body is confronted with a stressor, the brain signals for the release of stress hormones from the adrenal glands. Highlighting the influence of stress on appetite centers in the brain, excessive amounts of cortisol have been found to be secreted when stress is chronic, such as over an extended period. Prolonged increases in circulating cortisol have also been associated with increased energy intake in an attempt to re-establish homeostatic balance and have even been linked to a preference for energy-dense food items. The stress hormone cortisol binds to receptors located throughout the body but has been found to preferentially bind to fat cells in times of chronic stress. Once cortisol has bound to these receptors, it prevents the breakdown of stored fat, effectively enriching these adipocytes to store even more fat over time. Furthermore, cortisol contributes to the increased storage of visceral fat around internal organs and other tissues, thereby increasing an individual’s risk of developing obesity over time. Therefore, it may be indirectly related to an increase in overall body weight should stress and the release of cortisol persist and be chronic. In fact, a number of studies have found the relationship between stress, free cortisol, and obesity to be a product of chronic periods of increased stress and belly fat intake.
Based on evidence, the psychological area represents one of the most important elements explaining weight gain in chronically stressed individuals or at least a significant connection between being overstressed and having a lot of body weight. Among the first conditions that explain why weight gain from stress are the negative emotions that are highly correlated with chronic stress, especially anxiety and depression. The accumulation of negative emotional states, daily tensions, and difficulties to overcome can, in time, lead to maladaptive behaviors. One of these behaviors that utilize food as a coping mechanism appears to be very common during periods with high emotional burden, such as during stress. It was specified that one reason for this connection is that the emotional burden of the individual would then lead to maladaptive decisions, especially when passing through depression, resulting in overeating and thereby increasing body weight.
These emotional states could become even more relevant than the stress level itself when describing the eating pattern of an individual suffering from stress, because they mediate the relationship between stress level and eating behavior. Thus, we cannot understand the eating patterns of stressed individuals based only on their stress level because it is important to consider the intervening variable of psychological distress. In the same way, interventions should also aim at alleviating these issues in two stages. Presently, it is believed that dietary therapy alone is simply not enough to ensure efficacy in terms of weight loss. Losing weight is much harder than counting calories since many psychological factors may interfere. The only way to lose weight and keep it off is to understand the factors at play and take care of them.
Stress is a well-known inhibitor of weight loss and a predictor of weight gain and obesity, mediated by several mechanisms. Stress results in hormonal imbalance, which impacts our ability to manage food intake; it can make us eat more, delay satiety, and enhance fat storage by an increased secretion of insulin and cortisol. Moreover, stress can make us eat unhealthy processed food with high calorie content and low nutritional value, thus further worsening the weight profile. Hormonally, stress is a driver for anorexigenic hormones like neuropeptide Y, leptin, and ghrelin. Moreover, it reduces the amount of melanocortin, a hormone responsible for the sense of appetite. Chronic stress results in a lifestyle shift (e.g., inability to commit to a regular eating and sleeping pattern, physical inactivity) and leads to mood disorders (e.g., irritability, inability to focus, loneliness, and sadness), making individuals resort to sweets and junk food to find comfort and solace, starting a sort of positive feedback loop: “irritability-low mood-chocolate-alcohol-immediate diet response.”
Stress often triggers emotional eating or behavior, which is the feeling to eat food in response to negative feelings or emotions like frustration, anger, guilt, or loneliness. In this perspective, stress and the development of obesity are part of a vicious cycle in which stress prompts the individual to eat above their caloric requirements. Since appetite regulation is extremely complex, with inputs from hormonal, spatial, and emotional factors, this excessive food intake can further drive neuroendocrine signaling intended to suppress appetite and food intake. These factors, in combination, make effective stress management for weight loss a central pillar in the effective weight loss paradigm for any individual. In particular, the framework for weight management typically must provide guidance on both exercise and dietary inputs for weight loss. Various avenues can be targeted in terms of mitigating stress, mostly involving a multidisciplinary approach to mediate the biological pathways of neuroendocrine control and also targeting the genesis of behavior changes. In the following, we will discuss the various strategies that can be implemented across these fields.
To many researchers, the correlation between stress and weight gain can be comprehensively explained by the physiological changes that stress triggers. Chief among these changes is hormonal imbalance, particularly an excessive increase in the levels of cortisol in the blood when the body perceives any form of stress. Cortisol is commonly referred to as the ‘stress hormone.’ It is a corticosteroid hormone produced by the adrenal glands and released into the bloodstream in the presence of the hormone adrenocorticotropic, with higher levels released during stressful periods. Cortisol was initially released to help in situations requiring physical activity, such as when running from a tiger. Cortisol is known to have potent effects on appetite regulation above all else. It stimulates the production of neuropeptide Y, a potent brain neurotransmitter that can trigger hunger. People with high cortisol levels tend to increase their intake of unhealthy food, particularly high-fat food. It is, however, important to note that neither high cortisol levels nor cravings for fat, salt, and sugar have been shown to increase food intake by a statistically significant amount. Similar to what cortisol does, stress also has the ability to throw off balance other hormones that interact with cortisol, including insulin and leptin. In the long run, this can lead to other imbalances in the body, turning it into a fat-depositing machine. Insulin controls a significant amount of the body’s energy. If stressed, a large release of insulin, even if there is not enough glucose, is triggered. This makes a person crave sweet snacks, irrespective of energy consumption, resulting in stress leading to the consumption of sweet snacks. Additionally, high cortisol levels boost the brain’s propensity to consume sweet snacks. Finally, leptin is a hormone released by stress and belly fat cells. It signals to the brain when one has eaten enough. However, high levels of cortisol can block the brain from receiving this signal. This makes a person eat more than he or she needs to, thus piling on more weight.
LH-GAT model. We find that our best models trained with the combination of all data sources outperform the state-of-the-art models by an average F1 score of 7.2 on the test set, achieving performance scores of 84.2 precision, 89.1 recall, 85.5 F1, 87.3 G, 0.5 F1, and 72.4 true negative rate (TNR). Our model trained with all data sources, without pretraining, is ranked 1st in BC5CDR-NER and ranks 2nd in CHEMPROT. Furthermore, we also evaluate performance markers across different NER systems. Emotional eating is a crucial behavioral response to stress. In times of distress, food providers can be perceived as someone who provides comfort. It is common for these individuals to consume snacks, eat desserts, eat fried chicken, or brew a cup of hot cocoa; at the same time, they feel comfort. People eat when they are bored, they eat when they are occupied, and they eat when they are restless. Emotional eating behaviors are described as ‘swallow hunger.’ Swallow hunger in the actual sense is the flesh of a person craving food, but the psychological hunger meaning, or that the soul is seeking affection and love, is considered another thing. It is difficult to relieve emotional hunger with ordinary food because physical hunger and emotional hunger need to be treated differently. Physiological hunger arises from physical activities and the body’s signaling. An empty feeling in the stomach is a sign of a growling outlook in front of lunch. Emotional hunger is a psychological desire to consume particular food. The difference between the two, once recognized, may be helpful in making decisions as to whether to eat.
Effective stress management is a vital part of weight management. Weight gain and an inability to lose weight are significantly related to stress and the related increase of cortisol levels. However, this is just one small part of a multi-faceted issue. The primary strategies for effective stress management for weight loss include: • Eating a healthy diet • Regular physical activity • Using mindfulness or other forms of meditation to help one deal with stress in a healthy way • Not turning to food to cope with stress. A healthy diet should be the foundation of stress management and weight loss, as we know that the foods one eats have an influence not only on health but also on mood and well-being. Eating a balanced diet also contributes to overall good health, which can help make one more resilient to stress. Consistent physical activity aids in stress reduction for weight loss in addition to burning calories and improving your metabolism. Exercise keeps the body and heart healthy, has been shown to potentially decrease weight gain from stress, and naturally boosts one’s mood. Mindfulness-based stress reduction for weight loss and mindfulness-based eating awareness training have been shown to be effective for weight loss and increased feelings of well-being. Guided imagery can focus attention on a positive mental image rather than on the stressor. There are a variety of guided imagery resources, sometimes referred to as guided meditation or guided visualization. Relaxation techniques like deep breathing can also be used to decrease the body’s stress response. Yoga also helps individuals deal with stress in healthier ways. None of these is at the expense of physical activity and healthy eating to help a person attain or maintain a healthy weight. Managing stress is not just about the numbers on the scale; it’s about improving overall health and quality of life. Being stressed is related to an increased rate of weight gain and exacerbates the development of many health problems. Having negative ways of dealing with stress often prevents people from losing weight and can fuel an overeating cycle. Management of stress can be simplified to the phrase, “Move more and sit less, eat healthy and don’t eat emotionally or to get rid of stress!”
Now that it’s clear how beneficial a healthy diet can be in healing the body and managing stress, it’s time to turn our attention to the nutrients and foods that are especially beneficial in helping us get through difficult times, now and in the future. Essential nutrients are the nutrients that the human body needs in order to function properly and are necessary for life. Macronutrients and micronutrients are the critical components of nutrition because they are necessary for our overall health and well-being. A good diet with a variety of macronutrient and micronutrient levels in appropriate servings can help protect us from various illnesses, including being overweight or obese. It can help people get enough of the necessary nutrients, lose weight, and improve the effectiveness of various weight loss diets.
Some macronutrient and micronutrient sources are especially beneficial during times of stress because they are particularly calming and soothing. You can try incorporating some of the following into meals throughout the day. Macronutrients and micronutrients help manage the body’s response to stress hormones, heart rate, and stress hormone levels. Consuming carbohydrate-rich foods can increase serotonin and tryptophan levels in the body, which have tranquilizing effects. Complex carbohydrates reduce symptoms of stress by helping tryptophan reach the brain. To prevent mood swings and unhealthy cravings, it is a good idea to eat foods that provide carbohydrate, protein, and fat in every meal. Complex carbohydrates and lean protein are good choices for human health. Nutrient-dense food, which is high in macronutrients, micronutrients, and other health-promoting compounds, will help you make better food choices. Your meals will be more beneficial if you concentrate on consuming nutrient-dense foods. It’s also important to keep in mind that nutritious eating can help your physical and mental health. It doesn’t just affect the pounds. Although nutritious eating can help you lose weight, it is not a quick fix. This type of diet, when combined with physical activity, can help you achieve long-term success for successful weight loss and preservation.
Regular physical activity is considered a powerful tool for managing stress and coping with life challenges. Physical exercise is known to stimulate chemicals in the brain that may leave you feeling happier and more relaxed. It can be a valuable part of depression treatment and may improve mood quickly. Also, it may be able to reduce some of the symptoms of panic and anxiety. When done regularly, some types of exercise are effective in decreasing overall levels of tension, elevating and stabilizing mood, and improving sleep and self-esteem. Regular physical exercise is a healthy coping mechanism; exercise keeps stress hormones and symptoms associated with anxiety in check. Cardiovascular exercises such as walking, biking, or swimming, and strength training are critical components of any successful weight loss plan and help in stress reduction for weight loss. Other forms of physical exercise, such as playing sports, participating in outdoor activities, or engaging in physical activity that you enjoy, are additional ways to increase physical activity.
When you are physically active, your mind is distracted from daily stressors and becomes “unstuck,” breaking the cycle of negative thoughts. Exercise decreases adrenaline hormone levels. Since a significant number of doctor visits are due to stress, exercise can help lower out-of-pocket medical expenses. Exercise decreases cortisol levels. Cortisol is a stress hormone that provides us with quick energy when we are under stress, but it can cause weight gain. Taking the time to begin or maintain a regular exercise program can also give you better personal insight, bring more balance to your life, improve clarity in decision-making, and manage your mood. Finally, physical activities, especially when done with others, often help individuals get through difficult times. Note that physical activity helps in stress reduction for weight loss; your attitude about the activity is a crucial factor. Also, physical activity may affect some women’s cortisol levels after exercise, depending on the individual and/or type of activity.
Mindfulness is a practice of intentionally paying attention to each moment, being fully present and engaged in each activity, and accepting each thought and feeling. From a weight management perspective, mindfulness techniques may help individuals manage stress and alleviate the tendency to resort to maladaptive coping mechanisms, such as emotional eating, binge eating, or impulse eating in the presence of tempting foods. Research conducted on a predominantly female population of overweight and obese adults with some binge eating symptoms demonstrated that restrained eaters reporting significantly greater stress-eating managed at least some weight loss with the use of a stress reduction for weight loss technique such as mindfulness. In addition, practicing awareness eating—a form of mindfulness—is related to lower BMI in women.
Focused meditation (concentration)—focusing the attention towards a primary object, such as the breath, a bodily sensation, or an external object—is helpful for those seeking mental clarity, mental ease, and emotional regulation. Yoga guided a focus on the navel center as an anchor during periods of emotional distress, since the third chakra or navel center is believed to be the seat of power and wisdom. Some forms of meditation specifically cultivate positive emotions, such as loving kindness or compassion, toward oneself and others, which may counteract feelings of vulnerability as well as urges to self-soothe through food. Consistently engaging in meditation techniques with high levels of concentration can help achieve a more constant and easy-going state of mind. A heightened sense of focus and internal calm makes the ups and downs of daily life appear less daunting and more manageable. Meditation is beneficial for everyone, not just emotional eaters or food addicts. However, regular meditation requires very little effort and its rewards are no less than life-changing. By participating in meditation centers and workshops, individuals can begin to appreciate the many ways in which establishing a daily pattern of meditation can enrich and encourage mental, social, and physical well-being. Participants will experience increased coping skill development, anxiety reduction, and improved overall health.
Incorporating mindfulness and meditation to tackle aspects of effective stress management for weight loss will fortify an individual’s approach to handling the harsh realities of daily life with more grace and with a better sense of life satisfaction. This increased ability to sit more comfortably with emotions and feelings, as opposed to engaging in habitual (unhealthy) coping behaviors in an attempt to self-soothe or distract, eventually ripples into improved emotional and physical conditions. Discovering positive and healthy ways to handle the ups and downs in life can be pivotal in a comprehensive weight management program, particularly one incorporating positive lifestyle changes and emotional support within the framework of physical care. Increasing awareness in the areas of nutrition, fitness, and lifestyle choices can also be particularly beneficial in helping emotional eaters and food addicts break free from their respective forms of sitting meditation. Regular mindfulness and meditation practices may facilitate an enhanced sense of body awareness and decrease the likelihood of ignoring hunger and satiety cues. Research continues to illustrate connections between body awareness and health, particularly in relation to weight management. Increased body awareness has been shown to be most heavily associated with a longer time to remission from binge eating, in comparison to reduced symptoms in those with a lack of body awareness.
In conclusion, a multitude of physiological and evolutionary psychological processes underlie the relationship between stress and weight gain. It appears that these two variables operate through multiple overlapping mechanisms. While both of these factors are independently correlated with long-term weight, there is little literature focusing on the possible effects of current weight status on future stress responses. Interventions designed to prevent increases in weight due to stress and reduce the impact of stress on body weight are in high demand. A multidimensional approach is recommended that not only considers the impact of stress on food and the resultant physical processes in the body, but also stress management and improved diet.
Further research is necessary in weight management to identify useful, evidence-based interventions going forward. Traditional diet and exercise advice is often not sufficient or does not conjure the desired effect; therefore, alternative methods are becoming increasingly popular. The key is to fight stress and belly fat at opposing angles, not letting them feed into one another. The first step to achieving this is by managing stress and hormone responses. This can be achieved through a number of ways, including social support, physical activity, mindful eating techniques, and better organizational skills. While small improvements in these may be made independently, it is recommended that consumers incorporate all strategies into their daily lifestyle for maximum benefit. The issue of weight gain and the effect of stress is currently being highlighted through societal campaigns promoting well-being and awareness of conditions caused by poor dietary habits. The event of stress-induced weight gain may provide a further catalyst for the obesity epidemic, highlighting the need for education and self-management strategies.
The paid study has shown that there is a relationship between stress and weight several times. Several devices in the body may be responsible for this. Metabolism-improving hormones such as leptin and insulin, for example, may be produced less during stress. Conversely, the production of corticosteroids, which often accompanies an “anorexigenic” effect, increases. This hormonal imbalance can be an important lead by which stress can lead to weight gain. Psychological factors in stress may also play a role. One often finds changes in eating behavior in periods of stress, with high caloric and low-nutrient foods, such as fats and sugars, eaten more. There is talk of emotional eating. Stress also leads to more “cravings” for generally tasty (and therefore “bad”) food, especially among women. The role of attention and memory to cravings can also not be ignored in this context. The above mechanisms may change over time or occur in response to different types of stress. If weight problems caused by stress are to be a focus of study, it is important to first know the mechanisms behind the relationship.
It also points to the importance of restoring a good energy balance by not only paying attention to psychological factors, but also to tackling the dysregulation related to hormones and possible other systems. The results stress that all these systems are interconnected, similar to the whole relationship between stress, health, and losing weight. Our recent findings argue for a more holistic approach to the concept of stress in order to find a better way to alleviate the impact of stress on health. There is an indication that a healthy diet in stress may be an important relief. Furthermore, interventions consisting of different strategies for achieving weight loss, such as physical activity and relaxation, may have some utility. In addition, improvement of attention may also be useful. More research is required to study the possible additive value of interventions focusing on psychological as well as physiological mechanisms.
Uncovering an explicit stress–weight change relationship is the most challenging aspect of weight gain from stress. Thus, future research could improve our understanding of the psychological mechanisms of stress and eating behavior, which can result in the realism of stress–weight gain. Systematic, longitudinal research on stress and weight management is in demand to generalize weight gain from stress research outcomes in different populations. Future research should also incorporate research designs with long-term follow-ups to distinguish between permanent and transient weight gain. Moreover, a diversity of human biological systems participating in managing stress is involved, and it is critical to accomplish multidisciplinary connections to promote synergies and opportunities regarding the impact of stress on human body weight.
Given that the need to manage stress is undoubted, but consequently few studies compare the efficacies of effective stress management for weight loss methods, sustained theoretical and methodological progress in this setting is necessary. Consequently, future research should take into account underlying differences in the need for stress management efficiency according to the target attribute, ranging from intrinsic motivation to sociodemographic variables. Therefore, it is imperative to focus specifically on the problem of the general stress-lowering effect of relaxation techniques compared to other nonpharmacologic stress-reducing methods. Not only are more effective stress management therapies essentially beneficial in preventing or attenuating stress-associated weight changes, specifically in challenging weight loss goals, but similarly their benefits can be transported to the overall quality of life. Thus, the approaches to weight loss success could improve through long-term interdisciplinary collaboration, rather than each of the professionals working in isolation.
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