Food craving during the menstrual cycle and its relationship to stress, happiness of relationship and depression; a preliminary enquiry.

The associations between retrospective ratings of food craving and depression during the premenstrual, menstrual and postmenstrual phases of the preceding menstrual cycle and ratings of current levels of stress and happiness of relationship were examined in 5,546 women. In each phase examined, the severity of food craving was very strongly related to the reported severity of depression. Overall levels of food craving were inversely related to happiness of relationship and there was some interaction of this effect with on-going stress. However, once the effect of depression was accounted for there was no effect of either current stress or happiness of relationship on the cycle-related pattern of food craving and in general the magnitude of the effect of these psychosocial variables was very small compared with that of depression. Food cravings were also reported in the absence of depression, tending to show a cycle-related pattern, maximal premenstrually, declining during menstruation and further postmenstrually. Whilst this is consistent with a cycle-related biological explanation, it remains unclear whether the striking amplification of food craving ratings in association with co-existing depression, in all three phases examined, is also biologically based or dependent on psychological mechanisms. In view of the retrospective nature of the ratings of mood and craving and the limited assessment of stress and happiness of relationship, these findings should be regarded as preliminary. They are, however, of potential importance and the association between these two common phenomena deserves further study.