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Sunday at 7pm Increases One’s Likelihood for Comfort Eating

By Cheri Cheng | Update Date: Apr 10, 2013 01:39 PM EDT

Comfort eating is usually associated to people who are upset post break-up. Movies have frequently portrayed heart broken women reaching for a tub of ice cream or a jar of cookies to fend off their emotions. Due to these stigmas behind comfort eating, people often do not associate overeating due to boredom or to poor diets as a type of comfort eating. However, according to new researcher, comfort eating, which is one of the many reasons why diets fail, comes in multiple forms and is the most likely to occur on a Sunday night, specifically at seven o'clock.

In a survey done by Forza, a company that sells a diet supplement known as Raspberry ketone, the researchers mapped out the times and days that people within the United Kingdom reported to turning to comfort foods the most. The survey found that 48 percent of people reported to have more cravings for junk food from seven to 10 at night. The second leading time zone was in the evening from five to seven o'clock with 28 percent, and 13 percent of the participants reported to getting the most cravings during late afternoon from three to five. When the participants were asked which days were the most vulnerable for their diets failing, 16 percent of them, the highest percentage, said Sundays. The highest percentage for a weekday was on Mondays with 12 percent of people stating they wanted to snack the most.

When the survey looked into people's eating habits in terms of meals, they found that 65 percent of people stated that they tended to overeat their dinners. Roughly 41 percent of people tend to skip breakfast, which would explain why late afternoon to nighttime snacking increases. The survey reported that 36 percent of the people who reported to skipping breakfast believed that they ate more during dinner. Other than this factor, the survey found that mood swings influence snacking habits as well. Researchers believe that snacking is quite frequent on Mondays because people might be sulking from being back to work.

"It is usual for everyone to know the exact times of those danger spots so that they can eat more sensibly on those days," the chief executive of Forza, Lee Smith stated. "Fat O'Clock is a nightmare for all dieters. It's that time when you are especially vulnerable and the only thing that is going to stop your cravings is padlock on the pantry."

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