Remember my mini-rant a few months ago when I went to MA to visit Miriam and I was appalled by the gargantuan smoothie I was served in Penn Station? It turns out professor Brian Wansink at Cornell University studies this kind of thing: the effect of serving size, plate size, names of food, presentation, etc. on eating habits. He's written a book, Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think. That's next on my reading list for sure. I've just spent about twenty minutes watching the videos of his experiments on the above webpage (click the book title)--fascinating!
The thesis, as far as I gather, is that without knowing it, people are influenced by hundreds of factors that have nothing to do with feeling full to determine whether or not they are in fact sated ... or even hungry, for that matter. Things that we know at some level to be true--fancy names make us like food more, presentations makes food "taste" better, bigger plates make us eat more--have now been studied and proven to be true: people will eat a significant percentage MORE (up to 50%!) under any of the above circumstances.
The book, it seems, is a little mix of science, psychology, self-help and dieting. The videos are definitely worth watching if you've got a min.
...in the meantime, think twice before opening a bag of chips or digging directly into the ice-cream carton. ;)
I just put a hold on this from the library -- I'll let you know how I like it. I've been working at losing weight; what has really helped is to use smaller plates. We use large saucers right now as our plates (got them at the thrift store), and we got some little bowls from ikea. I've been really, really busy this month, and I notice my weightloss has stalled -- it takes effort to really be mindful of food intake.
ReplyDelete