Donald Trump could be the reason you’re over-eating, warn nutritionists

‘If I put on weight,I won’t be in danger’

Sarah Young
Tuesday 04 April 2017 15:27 BST
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According to nutritionists in the US, many people are reporting comfort eating to get over the shock
According to nutritionists in the US, many people are reporting comfort eating to get over the shock

He’s caused chaos on Capitol Hill, strained relationships with key world leaders, and fluffed his first big piece of legislation.

Now, he’s making people fat.

According to nutritionists in the US, many people are reporting comfort eating to get over the shock of his recent elevation to the most powerful office in the world.

New York City-based holistic health counsellor, Alexandra Jamieson told Well and Good: “I got two phone calls from women I had worked with in the past, and they had so much fear and anxiety.

“The immediate reaction for many women is to calm themselves with what the body knows works, which is food.”

Over in Los Angeles, top nutritionist Kelly LeVeque said she’d noticed the same thing, with clients reaching for alcohol and starchy carbs to deal with their emotions.

The way to tackle the issue is to acknowledge when your emotions are being triggered by negative thoughts about politics.

An alternative, according to Ms LeVeque, is to release the feel-good hormones of eating cheese and carbs in a more healthy way, for example by looking at photos of a happy event, or having a workout.

Ms Jamieson warned there are potentially deeper factors at play, particularly given the perception by some of an anti-women sentiment behind the Trump campaign.

She said: “Women are saying they feel unsafe with this man in the White House.

As women, we get looked at and it feels dangerous. It’s the idea of: ‘If I put on weight, I won’t be attractive … and I won’t be in danger.’”

One useful and healthy way of fighting back is to take action against the stress.

That could be campaigning against specific policies you disagree with, if you live in the US.

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