Sure, I can stop at one Milk Dud ... really.

Let's call her Joanne. We all know her: bumming bits of Hershey bars or chips of Chunkies, or sneaking a Snickers between meals. She's a chocoholic. Now, she and others who "self medicate" with chocolate or other sweets are being studied by psychologists. In one of the latest studies, psychologist Marjorie Schuman of the California School of Professional Psychology in Los Angeles and her colleagues report that people (like Joanne) with "an identified interest in chocolate" are more likely than others to be female (90 percent were women) and to have personality traits associated with a depressive syndrome called hysteroid dysphoria. Hysteroid dysphobics tend to exhibit a flamboyant personality, changing mood, tendencies to fall in love easily and be devastated by romantic rejection and a vulnerability to the approval or lack of approval of others. These moods frequently trigger an increased appetite for chocolate and other sweets, the researchers report, but "there is no evidence for any differential effect of chocolate on mood." They questioned 267 persons, including 73 in the "chocolate group."