Gary Evans, the Elizabeth Lee Vincent Professor in the Departments of Human Development and of Design and Environmental Analysis, explains his findings on poverty, stress, and obesity in this short interview with WAMC Northeast Public Radio.
New research is shedding light on why – like most other health problems – obesity is not randomly distributed in the population. For instance, poor and underprivileged people are more likely to become overweight, and we’re finding that stress is one of several reasons for this.
In many ways, poor people have a lot more daily stress in their lives, and research suggests this stress can increase one’s appetite for fat and sugar. Stress also erodes self-control – something essential to maintaining a healthy diet. Animal models have even shown damage to a part of the brain, the pre-frontal cortex, that is centrally involved in our ability to regulate our behavior.