Asked on what occasions she drank champagne, Lily Bollinger used to say that she drank it when she was happy and when she was sad; in company and alone. “Otherwise I never touch it—unless I’m thirsty.” Most of us have a similar attitude to food. We eat when we’re happy, and sad. Solitude（孤独）and company are both occasions for food. Otherwise, we never touch the stuff—except when we are hungry. The role of our moods in shaping eating patterns has long been studied by psychologists（心理学家）. But until very recently almost all researches focused on bad moods. The term “emotional eating” referred to the way that negative feelings could make people eat much more. Experiments have shown that, if you produce anxiety by giving people an impossible puzzle to solve or forcing them to watch a horror film, they eat more afterwards. There are two theories about why a bad mood has this effect. The first is that many of us—particularly the overweight — cannot distinguish hunger from unpleasant emotions. The second is that we use food—especially sugar—as a drug to calm ourselves down. It’s only recently that psychology has recognized that happy moods can make us eat more too. A study was published by Catharine Evers and her colleagues from Utrecht University in the Netherlands on “good-mood food”. It showed that a group of 70 students consumed significantly more snack foods after being put in a good mood by watching a heartwarming film about a baby panda sneezing（打喷嚏）. After the film—which lasted just two and a half minutes—the students consumed 100 more calories than a control group who’d been shown a boring film about birds in the desert. The whole economy of cinema snacks is founded on the premise（前提）that emotions on the screen can make us eat plenty of popcorn. It stands to reason that we eat more when we are happy. We are conditioned from childhood to use excess calories to celebrate, whether it’s a birthday cake or the feast of Christmas. Besides, food tastes better when you are feeling cheerful. The psychologist Michael Macht has done several experiments showing that chocolate tastes more delicious and “stimulating” in a state of joy than in a state of sadness.
2. What does the term “emotional eating” refer to traditionally?
A、People tend to eat more when they feel bad.
B、People tend to eat more when they feel happy.
C、People tend to eat more when they are in hunger.
D、People tend to eat more when they are with friends.
【正确答案】：A
【题目解析】：根据原文第二段“The term emotional eating referred to the way that negative feelings could make people eat much more.”可知答案选A。
