What the Dallman model proposes about food as stress relief — and what it does not establish.
What the evidence says
- Calorie-dense foods activate reward pathways[1]
- …and the resulting fat stores are PROPOSED to send signals that dampen HPA axis reactivity — this is the model's feedback half, and it is rat work[1]
- *The authors PROPOSE this reduces the stress response; they did not demonstrate it in people.* Their sentence: "We propose that people eat comfort food in an attempt to reduce activity in the chronic stress-response network with its attendant anxiety"[1]
- "Self-medication" with food being biologically effective short-term is the model's claim, not a measured human finding. In humans chronic stress runs BOTH ways — increased intake with weight gain, OR decreased intake with weight loss[1]
- Eating to regulate emotions (Macht mechanism #4) is learned, not innate — it develops through experience and reinforcement[2]
- Long-term cost: weight gain, metabolic dysfunction[1]