Comfort vs. Cravings: A Dietary Approach to Reducing Menstrual Distress

Menstrual distress, categorized by emotional, cognitive, and physical distress, is an extremely common experience among menstruating individuals and includes a range of symptoms from inflammation and mood changes to cramps and so much more. It is evident that dealing with menstrual distress symptoms severely disrupts an individual's quality of life by inhibiting daily activities. Menstruating individuals commonly end up suffering in silence when experiencing menstrual distress, due to a lack of literacy, access, or importance placed on their experience. Yet, this doesn't mean this population doesn't want menstrual relief; in fact, it exposes that the emphasis placed on medical interventions may be what is deterring them. The current study aimed to provide menstruating individuals with an accessible non-medical intervention to relieve menstrual distress through targeting their personal dietary patterns and habits, paying specific attention to their sugar intake, as research shows high sugar intake may intensify menstrual distress. It was hypothesized that menstruating individuals who actively replace sugar cravings with a healthier option (i.e., fruits and vegetables) over the course of their menstrual cycle would experience less severe and reduced experiences of menstrual distress, when compared with their baseline experiences. A mixed-methods, longitudinal, within-subjects, pretest-posttest design study was conducted over the course of eight weeks between January 2026 and March 2026. The sample was composed of 23 college-aged (18-22 years old) menstruating individuals from the Union College community. Each participant was asked to complete a weekly survey a total of eight times over the course of two menstrual cycles. During their first menstrual cycle, participants completed the Baseline Survey every week for four weeks on Qualtrics to obtain baseline data about their experiences of menstrual distress and dietary intake. Then, during their second menstrual cycle, participants were asked to replace their sugar cravings with healthier options and completed the Second Cycle Survey every week for four weeks on Qualtrics. My presentation will discuss the outcomes of the current intervention and its broader implications for future non-medical approaches to reduce menstrual distress.