Stress implicated in anorexia nervosa and obesity

An academic at the University of Hertfordshire is leading a research team to explore how emotions, habits and stress can cause people difficulties in controlling their weight.

Dr Nick Troop, a health psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire is leading the research which has just been awarded a joint Medical Research Council/Economic and Social Research Council (Interdisciplinary) Doctoral Training Grant to fund a PhD studentship.

The research, which will be carried out over a 4-year period, is a collaboration between the School of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire and the Section of Eating Disorders at the Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College, London, and offers a unique opportunity to integrate research in health psychology and psychiatry.

The research project entitled: Stress, affect systems, habits and problematic weight gain, will explore the systems that people use to manage emotions and how these interact with habits to cause people difficulties in regulating their weight.

"Previous research has found that these issues relate to both ends of the spectrum of weight-disorders and are implicated in anorexia nervosa and obesity," said Dr Troop. "By exploring weight loss and weight gain at the same time in people who were either previously anorexic or overweight, this research will tease apart how emotions, habits and stress can influence such apparently different conditions."