Obesity is a world-wide epidemic and many factors including stress have been linked to this growing trend. Following social stress (i.e., defeat), subordinate laboratory rats and most laboratory mice become hypophagic and subsequently lose body mass; the opposite is true of subordinate Syrian hamsters. This species becomes hyperphagic and gains body mass following social defeat compared with non-stressed controls. It is unknown whether this increase in body mass and food intake is limited to subordinate hamsters. In Experiment 1 we asked: Do dominant hamsters increase food intake, body mass, and adiposity following an agonistic encounter? Subordinates increased both food intake and body mass compared with non-stressed controls. Although there was no difference in food intake or absolute body mass between dominants and non-stressed controls, dominant hamsters had a significantly higher cumulative body mass gain than did non-stressed controls. Subordinate, but not dominant hamsters, had significantly increased total carcass lipid and white adipose tissue (WAT) masses (i.e., retroperitoneal [RWAT] and epididymal [EWAT]) compared with non-stressed controls. In Experiment 2 we asked: Does footshock stress increase food intake, body mass and adiposity? Hamsters exposed to defeat, but not footshock stress, increased food intake relative to non-stressed controls. Exposure to defeat or footshock stress increased body mass as well as mesenteric WAT mass compared with non-stressed controls. Collectively, these data demonstrate that both social and nonsocial stressors increase body and lipid mass in male hamsters suggesting that this species may prove useful for studying the physiology of stress-induced obesity observed in some humans.