News

St. Olaf College Assistant Professor of Psychology Carlo Veltri tells the Star Tribune that a new study showing that football fans eat more when their team loses — and less when they win — makes sense.

That’s because our personal identity is tied to our collective identity. “It’s the Minnesota Vikings — this is us — and they, the Kansas City Chiefs or whatever, are the other,” he says.

So, the paper notes, “When ‘we’ (collectively) lose, we (individually) turn to comfort food to assuage the disappointment.”

And, as Veltri points out, although the research focused on football and soccer, the theory applies “to any athletic team as long as we are personally connected to it.”