Junk food gets fans through team’s hard times

‘No one is rushing to eat more broccoli after their team has lost.’ Pierre Chandon

While the Edmonton Oilers playoff hopes are shrinking, there’s a chance that a portion of their fan base is seeing their waistlines expanding.

Fans, ask yourself — have you been reaching for some chocolate, maybe chips, or perhaps a delectable green onion cake following an Oilers loss?

A study published in Psychological Science discovered that on the Monday following an NFL game, fans supporting the losing team were turning to food as a method of coping.

Losing supporters consumed 16 per cent more saturated fats and 10 per cent more calories, while winning fans opted for the healthier route, reducing saturated fat consumption by nine per cent and calorie reduction by five per cent.

Pierre Chandon, a professor at the INSEAD Business School in Paris, who conducted the study along with researcher Yann Cornil, was surprised by the drastic results but admits he did expect that peoples’ eating patterns would be affected.

“We knew that sporting outcomes can affect many behaviours,” said Chandon, speaking from Paris. “That’s because, for many people, it’s part of their identity and self image. When you’re a fan, you don’t say that ‘they lost’. You say ‘we lost’.

“When you feel like a loser, it becomes more difficult to resist temptation, so we see people going for indulgent comfort food,” he continued. “People go for sugars and high fats. Ice cream, chocolate, burgers. No one is rushing to eat more broccoli after their team has lost.”

The effect is even stronger, says Chandon, when the loss comes after a close game.

“This is when it hurts the most. Your team had a chance to win and you didn’t at the last minute.”

While the study focused on data that compared two season’s worth of NFL games with people’s food consumption in 24 U.S. cities, Chandon insists the results can apply to any sport, including hockey.

“It doesn’t matter what sport it is,” he said. “It has nothing to do with the U.S., or a love of football. It’s about how strongly you care for your team.”