One man's porn binge is another woman's fridge raid

26 February 2017 - 02:00 By SUTHENTIRA GOVENDER
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Men pig out on porn and women on food to cope with stress.

A University College London survey of 115 men and 250 women found that nearly 30% of the men chose sex and porn to overcome anxiety, compared to 11% of the women. And 51% of the women ate for comfort, compared to 31% of the men.    

With South Africa being the second-most stressed nation in the world according to Bloomberg, the situation is no different when it comes to coping with pressure.

Head researcher Dr John Barry said the findings played into the "stereotype of a depressed woman gorging on chocolate and the man looking at porn on his computer".

But Johannesburg counselling psychologist Dr Ingrid Artus said she saw evidence of these coping mechanisms among her patients.

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"Men do tend to be more prone to various forms of sexual addictions while women find comfort in food," she said.

"Men tend to be stimulated more by visual inputs than women, making them more vulnerable to visual addictions such as pornography. Women, on the other hand, may be more vulnerable to comfort eating since they are more prone to use food to regulate emotional discomfort.

"In both instances, increased levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine is produced in the brain. Dopamine is responsible for reward and motivation, which means that the person becomes increasingly motivated to seek out the stimuli that produced pleasure as reward. In this way, addictions become means to escape the discomfort of reality."

Health and wellness expert Vanessa Ascencao said: "We live an unhealthy lifestyle and many of us seek happiness in things that cannot provide lasting happiness. South Africans need to start educating themselves on health and practise a more mindful attitude to life.

"Many of us experience stress, anxiety or depression, and studies show that men and women manage stress in very different ways."

Ascencao said women chose to comfort-eat because eating is associated with feeling good, can be done anywhere, at any time, and the "comfort is felt immediately".

According to Ascencao, men have a different relationship to food.

Not only that, "men are less inclined to seek help for their psychological needs. They generally don't demonstrate their feelings as obviously as women do. So when stressed or anxious, for men having sex or watching porn is about finding an escape from their troubles."

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