Bidirectional relationship of stress and affect with physical activity and healthy eating

While physical activity and healthy eating appear to offer protection against stress and negative affect, Schultchen et al. (2019) point out a few studies that have demonstrated a reduction in these behaviors in the face of stress and negative affect. This present study therefore inspected the relationship between these behaviors in daily life using ecological momentary assessment (EMA). For 7 days, 51 university students responded to six daily prompts on items such as stress, emotional experience, physical activity duration, and healthy eating. The results indicated that higher stress, negative affect, and lower positive affect were all linked with lower subsequent physical activity. Inversely, higher physical activity levels were associated with less subsequent stress and negative affect, and more positive affect. There was no such interlink between stress and affect with healthy eating. This study concludes that carrying out physical activity was correlated to improved mood and less stress/negative affect over the next few hours. [NPID: stress, physical activity, exercise, emotion]

Year: 2019

Reference: Schultchen, D., Reichenberger, J., Mittl, T., Weh, T., Smyth, J. M., Blechert, J., & Pollatos, O. (2019). Bidirectional relationship of stress and affect with physical activity and healthy eating. British journal of health psychology, 24(2), 315–333. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjhp.12355