From the ‘Morning Bummer’ department, I have an unfortunate cousin who is trapped in that infinitely recursive cycle of eating that happens when you eat because you are depressed and you are depressed because you’re fat. Weighing upwards of four bills, the woman will often come home from work, climb into bed and eat two full bags of Doublestuffed Oreos while watching television in a gloomy bedroom. She’s this really great, vivacious, knee-slapping personality, making it all even sadder that she could easily be featured as the mascot of Fat Chicks in Party Hats.

But it looks like eating too much chocolate might make my cousin depressed in more ways than one. Obviously, there’s a bit of a contradiction in eating to medicate yourself against the depression of being morbidly obese, but it turns out that chocolate is actually a depressive to boot. A team of psychiatrists just discovered that any uplifting effects of chocolate are pretty much limited to the anticipation and the taste, but the carbohydrates in chocolate actually prolong depression.

So if you like to eat chocolate when you’re depressed, better switch to booze like me. Stat!

Chocolate is Cold Comfort [Mind Hacks]

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