Bored with jobs, women find solace in eating

London: If your craving for chocolate or a biscuit gets the better of you, then it is time to look for another job. Women who are over-worked, bored or plain disgusted with their careers are more likely to find solace in eating, says a Finnish study.

The study found women who reported work burnout were more likely to develop an `emotional` eating habit, the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition reported. Nina Nevanpera, from the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, who led the study, said: "Those experiencing burnout may be more vulnerable to emotional eating and uncontrolled eating, and have a hindered ability to make changes in their eating behaviour." "We recommend that burnout should be treated first, and that burnout and eating behavior should be evaluated in obesity treatment," added Nevanpera, according to the Daily Mail. The findings are based on 230 women aged 30 to 55 years, who took part in a clinical trial looking at healthy lifestyle changes. All were jobs, and at the start of the trial they completed surveys on job burnout and eating habits. Overall, 22 percent women had some degree of work burnout. As a group, they scored higher on measures of emotional eating and uncontrolled eating. On top of that, women who did not have job burnout at the study`s start tended to cut down on uncontrolled eating over one year. But, on average, the burnout group failed to make that change. IANS