How Starvation Affects Your Rationalization Skills.

Girlfriend catty?
No, she's not really a bitch; she's just on a diet.

Everyone who has ever been on a diet that's not right for their genetic blueprint, knows that you get kinda crappy. You are not exactly the life of the party, while you are busy counting the calories in that cosmopolitan in your hand.
Personally, I think everyone who goes on the average, ridiculous, low-cal diet should wear a shirt that says, "hey! I'm NOT an emotional nutcase, I'm on a diet!". It would really explain so many irrational behaviors these days with all the weird, one after the other, trendy diets taking over and messing with your unique brain chemistry; causing you to react like a nut.

And now a new study just came out emphasizing the absolute disaster starvation has on your social problem solving skills. Starvation is SO yesterday - eating right for your genetic blueprint is the only way to a STRONG MIND in a STRONG BODY!

People with Anorexia Nervosa (AN) have well-documented socio-emotional and neurocognitive impairments. As yet, little is known about their ability to solve problems in social situations, although a link with cognitive avoidance has been suggested.

A just newly released study explored social problem-solving (SPS), using an experimental task comparing Anoroxia Nervosa sufferers with healthy controls. Secondly, the role of cognitive avoidance in SPS was investigated. Participants were asked to generate both the optimal solution and their personal solution. Solutions were rated in terms of how socially sensitive and practically effective they were. AN patients produced relatively poorer personal solutions compared to optimal solutions than healthy control participants and had higher scores on a measure of cognitive avoidance than the healthy control group. In AN patients, cognitive avoidance was partially associated with poor social problem-solving.

These findings suggest that whilst people with AN have no difficulty in generating socially sensitive and effective solutions to problems, but may have difficulty applying this knowledge to themselves. 

Reference: Psychiatry Res. 2012 Jul 16.