Food Decisions
65% of Americans are overweight or obese.
People think they make 15 food decisions a day on average, but research by Prof. Brian Wansink shows the number is well over 200. The bigger the plate, the larger the spoon, the deeper the bag, the more we eat. We sometimes moderate our intake by more than 20% up or down to match our dining companion.
Moviegoers in a Chicago suburb were given free stale popcorn, some in medium-size buckets, some in large buckets. What was left in the buckets was weighed at the end of the movie. The people with larger buckets ate 53% more than people with smaller buckets.
Dr. Wansink devised a bottomless soup bowl, with insulated tubing, plastic dinnerware and a pot of hot tomato soup rigged to keep the bowl about half full.
People using normal soup bowls ate about nine ounces. The typical bottomless soup bowl diner ate 15 ounces. Some of those ate more than a quart, and didn’t stop until the 20-minute experiment was over. When asked to estimate how many calories they had consumed, both groups thought they had eaten about the same amount, and 113 fewer calories on average than they actually had.
Dr. Wansink outlines a weight-loss plan based on simple awareness. Sit next to the person you think will be the slowest eater when you go to a restaurant, and be the last one to start eating. Plate high-calorie foods in the kitchen but serve vegetables family style. Never eat directly from a package. Wrap tempting food in foil so you don’t see it. At a buffet put only two items on your plate at a time.