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Sports can be a wonderful thing. Not only does it unite people together regardless of race, gender and nationality, it can give people something to root for, something to believe in. People who are avid sports fans support their teams no matter what and even if these sports fans never get on the field, they feel the emotions surrounding big wins and losses. Sometimes however, these emotions can get out of hand and lead to destructive behaviors. According to a new study, researchers found that fans tend to turn to food for comfort the day after their teams lose.

"Although prior studies had shown that sport outcomes influence reckless driving, heart attacks, and even domestic violence, no one had examined how they influence eating," the lead author and researcher at INSEAD Business School, Yann Cornil said according to Medical Xpress.

For this study, Cornil worked with INSEAD professor Pierre Chandon. They compared the results of NFL (National Football League) games in relation to food consumption over the course of two seasons. The data came from fans that lived in over two-dozen cities. They discovered that fans who resided in a city where the NFL team lost tended to eat about 16 percent more saturated fat on the Mondays right after a lost in comparison to their normal food consumption on Mondays when no games were played over the weekend. Conversely, fans that resided in a city with a winning NFL team ate around nine percent less saturated fat on the Mondays that came after a weekend of football. The researchers noted that these trends held true for people who were not fans, suggesting that fans' food consumption could influence other people.

"The data also allowed us to look at people living in cities without an NFL team or with a team that didn't play on that particular day, providing us with two control samples," the researchers said. "People eat better when their football team wins and worse when it loses, especially if they lost unexpectedly, by a narrow margin, or against a team of equal strength."

After finding this trend, the researchers had French participants write about an instance when their favorite team either lost or won. After the writing session was over, the researchers observed what the participants ate. They found that people who wrote about a loss tended to eat chips and candy over better options, such as grapes and tomatoes. People who wrote about wins did choose the healthy options. Based from these findings, sports fans might want to be more aware of what they put into their bodies the day following a hard loss.  

The study was published in Psychological Science.