Diet choice, cortisol reactivity, and emotional feeding in socially housed rhesus monkeys.

Chronic psychosocial stress produces an array of adverse health consequences that are highly comorbid, including emotional eating, affective disorders, and metabolic syndrome. The consumption of high caloric diets (HCDs) is thought to provide comfort in the face of unrelenting psychosocial stress. Using social subordination in female rhesus monkeys as a model of continual exposure to daily stressors in women, we tested the hypothesis that subordinate females would consume significantly more calories from a HCD compared to dominant females, and this pattern of food intake would be associated with reduced cortisol release and reduced frequency of anxiety-like behaviors.