The team provided the children with lunch, asked them to indicate their hunger level and then gave them free access to generous portions of 10 snack foods, along with a variety of toys and activities. The children were told they could play or eat while the researchers were out of the room.They assume those kids have low self control. Eat to pacify themselves. "In the absence of hunger."
"We found that older kids, ages 8 to 11, who exhibited greater cortisol release over the course of the procedure had significantly higher body-mass indices [BMI] and consumed significantly more calories in the absence of hunger than kids whose cortisol levels rose only slightly in response to the stressor," Francis said. "We also found that kids whose cortisol levels stayed high -- in other words, they had low recovery -- had the highest BMIs and consumed the greatest number of calories in the absence of hunger."
Sounds like postprandial hypoglycemia to me.
