Do Not Support Losing Sport Team - It Is Bad For Your Health

Supporting a losing team often leads to supporters binging on unhealthy food, or loading up on copious amounts of alcohol, and getting angry and riled up, as coping mechanisms for their loss. Read on to find out about a study which found that supporting a losing team could be harmful for your health.

Is supporting a losing sport team bad for your health?

A fascinating study has found that supporting a losing sports team can damage more than your ego — it can actually be bad for your health. The study was conducted by Dr Yann Cornil and Prof. Pierre Chandon from the INSEAD Business School. The study was conducted to analyze the effect of defeats and victories of soccer teams on the food consumption of their supporters.

In his study Dr. Cornil points out the supporters perceive their favorite team’s wins or losses as their own. These wins and losses have been known to make an impact on the self-regulation abilities of the supporters, just as if they were the ones to suffer a loss in their own lives.

There is a spurt in alcohol-related criminal activities, cardiac accidents, and domestic violence after narrow or unexpected defeats of local football and soccer teams. Dr. Cornil’s study was aimed at analyzing the effect of defeats of sport teams on the food intake of their supporters.

For this study, Dr. Cornil and his team collected the results from two seasons of NFL games and compared them with the supporters' food consumption data from more than two dozen cities. For the study, more than 700 NFL supporters were asked to maintain a record of the foods they consumed on the game day and on two days subsequent to the game day. As part of the study, about 475 games and the supporters of 30 different teams were observed.

On the other hand, people living in cities that had a winning football team consumed about 9% less saturated fat than their normal consumption, which conversely makes your team's win a win for you, too.

It was also found that the unhealthy food indulgence tendency was even more pronounced in the more devoted supporters of a losing team. The study found that people consumed healthier food when their favorite football team won and indulged in unhealthy food when their team lost unexpectedly or by a narrow margin. Dr. Cornil attributed this trait of indulgence in unhealthy food to a feeling of identity threat and a subsequent loss of self-worth. Such people turned to binge eating as a mechanism for coping with this stressful situation. The researchers involved in the study point out that when a team wins, it eventually boosts the supporter’s self control.

The researchers suggested that if the supporters of the losing teams actually wrote down the things that were important to them in life, it helped in countering the effect of over-eating after a loss. This self-affirmation technique was found to be quite helpful in neutralizing the psychological effect of the defeat.

Suggestions For Dealing With Disappointment

We all have to face defeat at some point in our lives. Sports fans go through a lot of ups and downs while following their favorite teams, feeling their teams' wins as their own, and their team's losses as a personal defeat. Some people tend to lose their temper after a loss whereas for other people, any kind of disappointment is a definite mood spoiler.

Given below are some suggestions for coping with a defeat in a healthy way:

• Do not get over-involved with the outcome of the game: One of the best ways of dealing with the loss of your favorite sport team is by not getting over involved with your team right from the very beginning. Take it as a game and not as something on which your self-esteem depends. Try to avoid getting too much emotionally involved. A win or a loss in a game does not pose any threat to your self-esteem and certainly not if you are not over-involved in the outcome of the game. Think through and set your priorities right. You have more important things to focus on – your wife, kids, job, etc.

• Try to be proactive: After going through the loss of your favorite team, be proactive and do not feel dominated by negative feelings of powerlessness and hopelessness. Try to get involved with a cause or activity that you are really passionate about and that will take your mind off the loss. It could be working out in a gym, gardening, or volunteering for a charitable cause. You could try going and helping in a homeless shelter.

• Take a break: Try to turn off a news channel or watch a movie to get over the feeling of the loss. Avoid getting exposed to sources of information that might make you feel even more depressed as your team's loss is played over and over again, focusing on the worst moments. You can also try exercising or going for a run. Exercising can be a great stress buster and you tend to benefit both mentally and physically by exercising.

• Share your feelings: Share your feelings with someone close. You could also try calling in to a local sports radio station and share your opinion with others. You can also consider spending time with your friends who support the same team and are feeling the same way after the loss.

• Try meditation: Meditation can be extremely relaxing and can help in soothing your mind and body. Meditation can help you find inner peace. Some meditation techniques that can come in handy include breath watching and focusing your mind on something that you would want to do or thinking about a place where you would want to be.

• Reminiscence: Take a while and think about some pleasant moments such as the last time when your favorite team won a big championship. Focusing your thoughts on positive things and ideas can be a great way of dealing with the loss of your favorite team.

• Choose to operate with dignity: Before a match, make a list of ways how people behave inappropriately while handling disappointment. Pledge to be mentally tough and not to engage in such acts of violence or hostility in the event of a loss. Try to set your own personal goals and see how people handle disappointment with dignity. Try to always be in control of your feelings and emotions and find ways to handle your stress in a dignified manner.

You must always remember that disappointment is an integral part of sports. The key to succeed is to learn how to cope with disappointment and not allow your emotions to rule your mind.