This interview appeared initially in Rutgers Today.
A self-described “huge foodie,” Janet Tomiyama, a Rutgers psychologist, is interested in why we diet, the social stigma attached to weight, and what happens to us psychologically when we diet.
Recently, while a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California-San Francisco (as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health and Society Scholar), Tomiyama and colleagues Elissa Epel and Mary Dallman discovered that comfort food, while it may add to the waistline and contribute to some health problems, really does lower the physiological and psychological effect of stress. Comfort food, it turns out, is called that for a reason.
With the holiday season approaching, and great piles of stress and good food getting ready to collide, Rutgers Today asked Tomiyama about the relationship between comfort food, stress and health.
Rutgers Today: What is “comfort food,” for purposes of your research?
