Curb your food cravings

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By Annie Murphy Paul

It's 4 p.m. Your workday is almost done. You're not really hungry, but like yesterday, same time, you've got a hankering for some chocolate. Not just any chocolate, but a Nestlé Crunch. So you head over to the office vending machine, drop in a few coins -- and just like that, your well-intentioned efforts to regularly eat only healthy, weight-loss-friendly foods are foiled -- again.

You're not alone. Many women routinely experience sudden and irresistible food cravings for potato chips, ice cream, cookies and, yes, chocolate. Just what triggers these overpowering desires for certain foods?

"Cravings are a natural part of our relationship to food," says Harvey Weingarten, Ph.D., the president and vice-chancellor of the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada, who has conducted extensive research on food cravings. According to Weingarten's research, up to 97 percent of women have felt cravings (compared to 68 percent of men), and we give in to our urges at least half the time. There's a big difference between cravings and hunger pangs. "When you're hungry, you'll eat anything," Weingarten points out. "Cravings are very specific. People crave a certain type of food, like chips or chocolate -- and within that category, even a particular brand."

Though cravings seem to overtake us without warning and without reason, research shows that they are actually very predictable, arriving at particular times and in particular situations.

When your cravings hit
You've probably noticed that you feel your strongest food yens at specific times of the day -- or month. Here are the whens and the whys of cravings:

- During the midafternoon slump (from about 3-6 p.m.) "By far the greatest number of cravings occur late in the day," says Marcia Levin Pelchat, Ph.D., of the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, an institute that does research on taste and food preferences. "That's when our blood glucose drops, making us sluggish and in need of a lift." All it takes now is a cue -- a fast-food billboard on your way home or a co-worker's candy bar -- to bring on a major craving.

- When we're stressed out, upset or bored Bad moods frequently give rise to cravings: We imagine that if we eat a cookie or a chocolate bar, we'll feel better -- and often we do. Carbohydrates -- sweet or starchy foods -- increase the secretion of the brain chemical serotonin, which in turn can improve mood.