Married Couples May Eat More After An Argument, Study Finds

Marital stress can make you eat more, according to a study published in the journal Clinical Psychological Science.

The study looked at the diets of 43 married couples at a healthy weight and found that they were likely to eat more when certain topics came up.

Researchers from the University of Delaware and Ohio State University's College of Medicine noted that these topics triggered a hormone called ghrelin, which sends hunger signals to the brain.

The couples attended two 9.5-hour-long sessions during which they ate a meal and tried to resolve one or more conflicts together. The findings showed that couples had higher amounts of ghrelin after arguments. This was found to be true for both genders.

These couples also often chose unhealthy foods to combat their hunger. But Lisa Jaremka, one of the study's authors, was careful to note that the arguments did not necessarily cause the hunger or poor choices of diet — it was simply a correlation noticed by researchers.