What eating chocolate really does to your skin

It’s just two days after Easter Sunday and while we’ve loved every minute of chowing down on all the chocolate we could get our hands on, our skin isn’t thanking us right now.

And it seems we’re not alone, as people have taken to Twitter to reveal that they too have awoken from their chocolate-fuelled coma to see a face full of spots staring back at them in the mirror.

“Woken up with a big zit next to my nose. Never get spots. All I did was think about eating my Thorntons chocolate rabbit. Happy Easter peeps,” one person wrote on Twitter.

“Say goodbye to my beautiful skin when the spots tell me how much they hated it,” another person said about the chocolate-filled weekend.

But how much does binging on a full Cadburys or Lindt Easter egg really affect your skin?

While we might think it’s just common knowledge that sugar affects how flawless our complexion is going to be, Dr Pascale Mathelier-Fusade told beauty brand La Roche-Posay that it actually affects different skin types in different ways.

“It’s a matter of common sense; if a patient notices that after eating two or three chocolates they have pimples the next day, common sense tells them that they should limit the amount of chocolate they are eating,” she said.

Others things that affect acne are stress, DNA and hormones and chocolate might not be a factor in it at all for you.

All About Acne co-chair Dr JoAnn See told Acne.org.au that while there is growing evidence of a strong link between diet and acne, chocolate hasn’t officially yet been pinned down as one of the major foods that give people spots.

“What we do know is that as chocolate is high in fat and sugar and eating lots of chocolate puts people at risk of weight gain. Being overweight is a known risk factor for acne,” she said.

And if you notice your skin start to come out in angry spots when you indulge in chocolate, it’s not all bad news because you can still get your sugar fix by just choosing a different variety.

Emma Hobson, the education manager for the International Dermal Institute and Dermalogica previously told Popsugar that if you really love chocolate but you know that it will affect your complexion, then you should always chose a dark chocolate option.

According to Emma, it contains more zinc than milk or white chocolate, which maintains the health of our skin.

She also claims it has up to fifty per cent less sugar than any other variety and is a powerful source of antioxidants.

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