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Mindless Eating: The 200 Daily Food Decisions We OverlookFull Text (not active)
Related Articles Just put your mind to it Abstract How aware are people of food related decisions they make and how the environment influences these decisions? Very little if at all! Recent studies conducted at the Cornell Food and Brand Lab directed by Dr. Brian Wansink showed that people underestimate the number of food related decisions they make each day, by an average of more than 221 decisions! Furthermore, most people are unaware of how our environment influences those decisions or are unwilling to acknowledge it. Based on these results it is not unfair to say we often engage in Mindless Eating! In a first study we surveyed 139 individuals and asked them initially to estimate how many total decisions they made about food and beverages in one day. They were later asked specific questions about the number of when, what, how much, where and who decisions they made for a typical meal, snack, and beverage. Participants were also asked to provide information on how many meals, snacks, and beverages they ate during a typical date. An aggregate index was created to estimate the number of total decisions made daily. Results showed that the average participant guessed they made 14.4 food related decisions per day. In actuality, we found that the average participant made an estimated number of 226.7 food related decisions per day. Moreover, we founds that obese participants made more than 100 more food related decisions than those merely overweight individuals. In a second study we investigated how environmental factors such as package size, serving bowl size, and plate size influenced how much people consumed. The study enlisted 379 individuals half of whom (192) were assigned to a so-called “exaggerated treatment” condition: larger size packages, bowls and plates. We found that on average, 73% of those in the “exaggerated treatment” group thought they ate as much as they normally would, when in actuality, they ate 31% more than individuals eating from regular sized packages, plates and bowls. Furthermore, when informed of the average higher consumption for the group and asked why they thought they might have eaten more, only 8% admitted they might have eaten more, 21% claimed they did not eat more and 69% said that if they did eat more, it was because they were hungry. Only 4% believed they had eaten more because of the named environmental cue – larger sizes. These results show how hesitant we are to acknowledging being influenced by environmental cues. For more information see Wansink, Brian and Jeffrey Sobal (2007), “Mindless Eating: The 200 Daily Food Decisions We Overlook,” Environment and Behavior 39:1, 106-123 © 2007 SAGE Publications http://eab.sagepub.com doi:10.1177/0013916506295573 Contact: |
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