Chocolate craving when depressed: a personality marker.
We examined links between chocolate craving in people who are depressed and both personality style and atypical depressive symptoms, with a web-based questionnaire completed by nearly 3000 individuals reporting clinical depression. Chocolate was craved by half of the respondents (more so by women), judged as beneficial for depression, anxiety and irritability, and associated specifically with personality facets encompassed by the higher-order construct of neuroticism. The simple question of depression-associated chocolate craving appeared an efficient discriminator of DSM-IV atypical depression symptoms.
Parker
Gordon
G
Black Dog Institute, Prince of Wales Hospital, Randwick 2031, Sydney, Australia. g.parker@unsw.edu.au
Crawford
Joanna
J
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002099:Cacao; D003863:Depression / Q000523:psychology*; D039721:Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; D005260:Female; D005518:Food Preferences / Q000523:psychology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010551:Personality; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires