Study authors Naomi Mandel of Arizona State University and Dirk Smeesters of Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, had participants in both Europe and the United States write essays on their feelings about their own deaths. Those who wrote about their death wanted to buy more healthy and unhealthy foods and ate more cookies than those in a control group who wrote about a painful medical procedure.

"Consumers, especially those with a lower self-esteem, might be more susceptible to over-consumption when faced with images of death during the news or their favorite crime-scene investigation shows," Mandel says in a statement.

The study authors suggest people with low self-esteem who tend to over-consume after death-related thoughts may have "heightened self awareness," and reminders of their inevitable mortality make them feel uncomfortable about what they have done with their lives and whether they have made a significant mark on the universe.

The findings are published in the Journal of Consumer Research.