Is there a difference in how men and women react to food? “There is a gender difference in food cravings and how well men and women are able to apply healthy eating principles,” notes Laura C. Ford, PhdC, RN and Certified Nurse Practitioner at LakeView Family Care in Mattawan. “Men’s food choices and how they eat tend to be more connected to social pressures, while stress and hormones often trigger women’s cravings for certain foods. There are medications that can also cause chemical imbalances, affect metabolism or make you crave different foods.” Ford cites birth control pills, some herbal remedies that affect the liver or gall bladder and high blood pressure medications as examples.
“Women tend to indulge their cravings more often in response to negative feelings and will be more likely to seek help from medical professionals,” Ford says. “However, I have women asking me to fix them with hormones when they’re drinking 20 cups of coffee each day, not eating any protein and only getting five hours of sleep while working 12 hour days, seven days per week. There’s a reason why they feel the way that they do.” Her recommendations for those particular patients revolve around healthy lifestyle changes.
“Our ethnicity, culture and our age can also affect food choices,” Ford adds. “As we get older, both men and women tend to eat healthier foods. Plus, if your diet is too monotonous, you may be more likely to give in to impulse cravings than someone who eats a wide variety of foods.” She also sees a lot of similarities for men and women in the underlying emotional reasons that may lead to overeating. “These are issues I have personally struggled with,” Ford admits, “So I’m not just dispensing advice from an ivory tower. I understand how difficult it is to adopt healthy eating behaviors.”
“We tend to eat when we’re under stress, feeling nervous, sad, and lonely or even when we’re bored,” says Brady Harnishfeger, Ph.D., who specializes in counseling men. “The main difference between the genders comes when we try to change eating behaviors. It helps to heighten one’s awareness of the emotional and physical states that might precipitate overeating or eating the wrong kinds of foods. For men and women, that goal is the same, but it’s harder for traditionally socialized men to cue in to that self awareness.”
Dr. Harnishfeger says the traditional male image does not encourage men to delve that deep. “We’re not in tune with our bodies,” he adds. “Men are often told to play through the pain and ignore uncomfortable symptoms, so when we feel stress or tension, that might prompt overeating. It can be difficult for guys to know exactly when that tension starts to build or to examine their anxiety and emotional triggers.” There’s even a term for that state - alexithymia – an unawareness of differing emotional states and an inability to describe those different emotional states.
“Men usually describe being ‘stressed’ or ‘ticked off’ and we have to dive deeper under that umbrella emotion,” he states. “All guys are given the stamp of approval for feeling anger and frustration, but underneath you find there may be some depression, loneliness, guilt or shame about something.” Because those are so-called “vulnerable” emotions, Dr. Harnishfeger says men are often not equipped with the “tools” necessary to be able to figure out why they chow down an entire pizza, polish off a box of cookies or gobble up that quart of ice cream. He suggests both genders read “Calm Energy – How People Regulate Mood with Food and Exercise” by Robert E. Thayer, Ph.D.
Counselors teaming up with nutrition specialists can help men and women build a specific plan for what to do with those emotional triggers, the desire to overeat and how to respond to their feelings in a more healthy way. According to Dr. Harnishfeger, “Guys just have more work cut out for them.”
