Stress, eat, repeat?
The Food Chain
BBC
4.7 • 545 Ratings
🗓️ 7 May 2025
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When you’re feeling stressed, does it affect your appetite?
In this programme Ruth Alexander is joined by two experts in chronic stress to discuss why it can cause us to crave certain foods, the impact on our bodies and whether there’s anything we can do to prepare for periods of stress in our lives.
Ruth is joined by Professor Rajita Sinha, clinical psychologist and founding director of the Yale University Interdisciplinary Stress Center in the United States, and Dr Mithu Storoni, neuro-ophthalmologist and author of the books ‘Stress-Proof’ and ‘Hyperefficient’.
If you would like to get in touch with the show, please email: thefoodchain@bbc.co.uk
Presented by Ruth Alexander.
Produced by Beatrice Pickup and Bisi Adebayo.
(Image: a woman studying and eating a slice of pizza whilst wearing headphones. Credit: Getty Images/ BBC)
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | I'm no longer ravenous. I'll no longer eat until I fall asleep. The Hunger Game, |
| 0:05.9 | a new five-part series exploring the meteoric rise of weight loss drugs. It's been an incredible |
| 0:10.7 | story with these drugs. The uptake, the amount of product that's been sold, the amounts of money |
| 0:15.1 | is cost. What the drugs do, how they work, and the knock-on effects of their widespread use. |
| 0:20.5 | We'll be sitting here in three years' time going, oh, it caused problems that we're now going to have to fix. |
| 0:26.2 | The Hunger Game with me, Professor Gilesio. |
| 0:29.1 | Listen first on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:35.2 | Does stress affect how you eat? |
| 0:38.1 | Yes, all the time. |
| 0:40.3 | It makes me eat more. |
| 0:42.0 | Yeah, I comfort eat I do. |
| 0:44.4 | Savory mainly, so crisps, peanuts, things like that. |
| 0:48.4 | It's my crutch. |
| 0:49.7 | I think you're eating habits changed |
| 0:50.9 | because you don't have time to eat at the normal times, |
| 0:53.5 | so you eat at the wrong times so you eat at the |
| 0:54.3 | wrong times and you eat the wrong foods uh you tend to eat more junk food i think i think you |
| 0:59.8 | eat whatever's quick and easy rather than what you probably should eat more fruit and veg and things |
| 1:04.7 | but it's uh i suppose it's a speed and ease of access thing and how do you feel after you've eaten it? |
| 1:12.4 | Probably a bit guilty, yeah. |
| 1:14.6 | I think I eat more when I'm stressed. |
| 1:16.8 | I think I stress eat. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.