I am, so I eat?

In honor of my fast-approaching quarter-life birthday (and subsequent crisis), I thought this Science Daily article from a few weeks ago was too appropriate:

Morbid Thoughts Whet The Appetite

ScienceDaily (June 27, 2008) — Can watching TV news or crime shows trigger overeating? According to new research in the Journal of Consumer Research, people who are thinking about their own deaths want to consume more.

So let me get this straight: seeing my birthday cake will cause me to think more about my own mortality, which will make me more likely to eat all of said cake, which will make me question my mortality again, which will make me wonder where the ice cream ever ended up?

Damn it. You can find the rest of the article here while I go dig out that quart of Ben & Jerry's chocolate chip cookie dough...