So Apparently Cheering for a Losing Football Team Makes You Fatter

Sometimes (read: every time), watching your team lose can hurt as bad as a break-up, or your dog dying, or watching the last thirty minutes of The Fox and The Hound. Well, it turns out football fans not only feel the same pain, they deal with it in the same way too. Namely, by turning into big fat fatties.

According to a recent study published in Psychological Science, football fans can consume up to 28% more saturated fats after a defeat and up to 16% less after a victory, with more pronounced numbers in cities with more fervent fanbases, like Pittsburgh. In other words, after losing games, these fans actually turn to eating their feelings for comfort. All of their greasy, ranch dressing-drenched, deep-fried feelings.

“If you’re a fan, you say, ‘We lost, I lost,’” Pierre Chandon, a co-author of the study, explained to the New York Times. “When people feel their identity is threatened, they compensate by eating indulgent food. It’s more difficult to resist temptation. No one ate broccoli after a defeat.”

The study, which compared the eating habits of fans who lost to fans whose teams did not play or to people from cities without teams, also noted the biggest binges happened on Mondays.

We can only imagine how bad it gets in the fantasy leagues.

H/T + PicThx NYT