Ah, gummy bears. So adorable with their colorful smiley faces. Have one or two and they’re a sweet little treat.

But that’s not how Dylan Allen was eating them.

“I was consuming a bag a day,” admits the lawyer and Elkridge resident. The catalyst for her excessive gummy-ing? The results of the 2024 presidential election and the general economic and cultural upheaval that have followed.

“It’s driven me to distraction with worry. I thought I had my stress-eating under control, but my poison is gummy bears,” Allen said. By the time she saw a doctor in January, those deliciously evil critters had done their worst. “I was heavier than I’ve ever been. My blood pressure was higher than it’s ever been.”

She’s just one of several people I’ve spoken to and read about who have reported weight gain because of overeating, over-drinking and general freaking out since President Donald Trump was reelected in November. Since he took office on Jan. 20, he has radically rearranged the government, threatening to shutter entire departments and lay off tens of thousands of people — particularly devastating for a state like Maryland, where 1 in 10 residents is a federal employee. Uncertainty and anxiety are high. Comfort often seems to be at the bottom of a bag of something sweet, salty or fried.

It’s not the first time this particular president has sparked this weighty issue; The Boston Globe dubbed the extra pounds the “Trump 10″ during his first administration. It describes eating one’s feelings, and trust me, there are a lot of feelings.

I lost 20 pounds last year, and was keeping it off. But immediately after the election, I started hearing from friends and relatives in constant fear of losing their jobs, and couldn’t stop reading about the administration’s seeming quest to purge the achievements of Black people, women and other marginalized groups from the public record. Do fried rice and cheese curls change anything? Probably not. But I was willing to find out, at least until I got on the scale in February and realized I’d obliterated half my weight loss.

I decided, like a lot of others, that I wasn’t going to let this kill me.

“The only thing you really have control over is you,” said Elizabeth Sherman, a health coach originally from the Chicago area who currently lives in Mexico. “If you’re completely stressed out, if you’re not taking care of your health, you’re no good to anybody.”

We think of emotional eating as our nemesis, but Sherman said it’s natural to link food to how we feel. “That’s how we celebrate, how we come together. Food is emotional. It brings us comfort,” she said. “What we want to get rid of is unconscious eating — inhaling chips and not realizing what I’m doing, not even tasting them.”

Bobbie Goldman of Ellicott City began treating her nerves in the warm embrace of McDonald’s golden arches when COVID lockdown ended, but it got even more serious after Trump was elected late last year. “It’s very anesthetizing to go there [McDonald’s]. I don’t talk to anyone I don’t want to talk to, so we’re not talking about mass deportations or Ukraine. It’s a form of controlled sensory deprivation. I kind of turn my brain off, then go back home and continue the fight.”

Goldman hasn’t gained any weight since November, but she’s still tried instead to focus on reading, puzzle books or “a coping mechanism that doesn’t cost eight bucks a pop,” she said.

Like Goldman, Chauna Bryant of Riverdale said she was “so stressed out” watching the news each night during COVID lockdown that she gained 35 pounds. “I was buying new jeans and crying,“ she said. ”They would ask, ‘What size are you?’ and I would cry, ‘I don’t know!‘”

So when President Trump was reelected, Bryant was prepared. “I was like, ‘I know what I did last time, and now I have established what happened and what didn’t work.’ My metabolism is only more combative now. I don’t have the opportunity to gain another 30 pounds.”

Former Annapolis resident Priscilla Taylor, who now lives in North Carolina, said her stress started “immediately” the night of the election. But just as quickly, she refused to let it get her since she’d anticipated the crisis.

“We [Black people] are used to not having a good time when it comes to our rights. My granddad used to say, ‘Black people, we have an arrangement. We make a way out of no way because we had to.” For Taylor, that means keeping track of her eating and working out at home. “I would use that physicality to sort of take out my rage and stay fit. The stronger I get, the more I am equipped to fight, no matter what kind of fight it is.”

So how do we combat this with every day bringing new uncertainty? Sherman said the answer is not chastising yourself for wanting a treat, but managing the feelings that make you want to drown in them. In other words, less doomscrolling, OK?

“Where is the line between being informed and taking care of yourself? The decisions I need to make right now are the only things I have control over,” Sherman said. “I can be aware of why I am reaching for this thing. So maybe I’m not eating out of the container. Maybe I’m putting it in a bowl.”

“Being healthy is the resistance,” said Bryant, who has lost about half the weight she gained. “We can’t resist when we are sick, when we are food-addicted, when we can’t move our bodies. You can’t help others if you can’t help ourselves.”

As for Allen? “The gummy bears are gone,” she said. Going to the doctor was a “wake-up call,” and she quickly lost 15 pounds by walking and working out at home.

We don’t know what’s coming. But we have to be here, and healthy, to withstand it.