Eric Barker writes Barking Up the Wrong Tree.
That’s hardly shocking.
But what’s interesting is there’s a way to fix this that doesn’t involve exercise or being deprived of your favorite foods.
No, this is not some silly pitch for low carb, low fat, Crossfit or the magical supplement of the week. Actually, it’s about psychology.
Brian Wansink is a Cornell researcher who studies how we eat. He was appointed by the White House to head up changes to US Dietary Guidelines.
He’s also the author of two fascinating books:
Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think
Slim by Design: Mindless Eating Solutions for Everyday Life
In the course of his research, Brian realized something pretty interesting:we eat for lots of reasons — but usually not because of hunger.
Via Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think:
Everyone — every single one of us — eats how much we eat largely because of what’s around us. We overeat not because of hunger but because of family and friends, packages and plates, names and numbers, labels and lights, colors and candles, shapes and smells, distractions and distances, cupboards and containers. This list is almost as endless as it’s invisible.We are slaves to context. We eat because friends are around, because something’s free, because it’s in reach, because things are tasty, etc.
We respond to “food cues” over feelings. What we see is usually more important than what we actually eat. And Wansink wanted to prove this.
One of the things that makes his research so clever is that he’s sneaky.
(If you have the choice of trusting what a used car salesman says or what a psychology researcher tells you before a study, go with the car salesman.)
Wansink rigged bowls to be “bottomless.” A hidden tube made sure that no matter how much soup a subject ate, the bowl would not empty.
Then he fed people. What happened? People with normal bowls ate 15 ounces. Some with the rigged bowls more than a quart.
No comments:
Post a Comment