Three minutes playing this classic smartphone game was enough to block common cravings.
Three minutes playing this classic game was enough to reduce common cravings.
As little as three minutes of Tetris can reduce cravings for food, sex and sleep by one-fifth, a new study finds.
Participants in the study played the old block-shifting game at random times during the day.
Professor Jackie Andrade, one of the study’s authors, said:
“Playing Tetris decreased craving strength for drugs, food, and activities from 70% to 56%.
This is the first demonstration that cognitive interference can be used outside the lab to reduce cravings for substances and activities other than eating.
For the study, 31 people were prompted to report their cravings 7 times during the day.
Half the group, though, played Tetris, then reported their cravings again.
Professor Andrade explained why games like Tetris may work:
“We think the Tetris effect happens because craving involves imagining the experience of consuming a particular substance or indulging in a particular activity.
Playing a visually interesting game like Tetris occupies the mental processes that support that imagery; it is hard to imagine something vividly and play Tetris at the same time.”
For the research, people reported experiencing cravings 30% of the time.
Cravings were for things like coffee, cigarettes, sex and socialising.
The most popular cravings were for food and non-alcoholic drinks.
Professor Jon May, another of the study’s authors, said:
“The impact of Tetris on craving was consistent across the week and on all craving types.
People played the game 40 times on average but the effect did not seem to wear off.
This finding is potentially important because an intervention that worked solely because it was novel and unusual would have diminishing benefits over time as participants became familiar with it.
As a support tool, Tetris could help people manage their cravings in their daily lives and over extended time periods.”
Two factors which may be central to obesity identified by new study.
Two factors which may be central to obesity identified by new study.
People who keep food visible around the house — especially outside the kitchen — are more likely to be obese, a new study finds.
This suggests the home environment is a vital place to start when trying to a lose weight.
Professor Charles Emery, a psychologist at Ohio State and leader of the new study, said:
“I do think the home environment is a really important place to focus on since that’s where most people spend a majority of their time.
For interventions, we should be thinking about the home as a place to start helping people establish what we know to be healthier habits and behaviors.”
The study also found that low self-esteem related to weight was linked to obesity.
Self-esteem is not normally targeted by adult weight-loss programs, Professor Emery explained:
“Most weight-loss interventions for children and people with eating disorders include a focus on self-esteem, but it’s not standard for adult weight-loss programs.
Self-esteem is important because when adults don’t feel good about themselves, there may be less incentive for implementing behavioral changes in the home environment.”
The results come from a study of 100 people, half of whom were obese.
They were interviewed in their homes about their food consumption and where they stored food.
Two weeks later they were followed up to examine what food they’d bought.
Professor Emery explained the results:
“The amount of food in the homes was similar, but in the homes of obese individuals, food was distributed in more locations outside the kitchen.
That speaks to the environment being arranged in a way that may make it harder to avoid eating food.
That has not been clearly documented before.”
Obese participants in the study said they were more worried about having access to food whenever they needed it.
They also said they found it hard to avoid eating when they were stressed, whether or not they were hungry.
Professor Emery said:
“This may reflect a greater preoccupation with food, and that is also important.
If food is something you’re thinking about a lot, it potentially becomes a source of stress.
And yet it’s something hard not to think about.
You can’t just stop eating, but ideally you can change the way you eat and, to some degree, change the way you’re thinking about eating.”
The study is published in the International Journal of Obesity (Emery et al., 2015).
The ideal time between weigh-ins for those watching their weight.
The ideal time between weigh-ins for those watching their weight.
The more frequently dieters weigh themselves, the more weight they lose, according to a new study.
Dieters who weighed themselves daily tended to do best while those who weighed themselves less than about once a week tended to gain weight.
The results come from a study of 40 overweight people who collectively weighed themselves a total of 2,838 times over a year.
The researchers found that:
“Weight increased linearly with the number of days between consecutive weight measurements: the more days between weight measurements, the larger the weight gain.
[…]
…daily self-weighing was generally associated with weight loss while breaks longer than one week and, especially, longer than one month were associated with weight gain.” (Helander et al., 2014)
For people looking to maintain their current weight, the authors advise:
“…during weight loss maintenance, it can be difficult to reverse the trajectory of even minor weight gains.
Therefore, individuals seeking weight maintenance may be encouraged to conduct self-weighing at least weekly.”
The research, published in the journal PLOS ONE, cannot tell us that weighing yourself more causes weight loss.
It may be that more committed dieters tend to weight themselves more.
The authors also say:
“For some individuals, frequent self-weighing may be associated with negative outcomes such as increased body dissatisfaction or decreased self-esteem when progressing too slowly towards or failing in weight loss goals.
Nevertheless, self-weighing frequency and body satisfaction were not found to correlate in a weight loss trial, whereas increased self-weighing frequency was once again associated with greater weight loss.”
Dr. Brian Wansink, one of the study’s authors said:
“The bottom line is: If you want to lose weight, it’s best to weigh yourself every day.
But if you weigh yourself only once a week, do it on Wednesday because that will give you the most accurate reading.”
Some of these tips on weight loss and comfort food, exercise, the emotions and more might surprise you.
Some of these tips on weight loss and comfort food, exercise, the emotions and more might surprise you.
1. Look at loads of pictures of food
It’s the most unlikely weight-loss trick ever: looking at endless pictures of foods can make them less enjoyable to eat, a recent study has found.
While a few photos might enhance the appetite, contrary to what you’d expect, people are actually put off the taste by looking at loads of pictures of food.
Professor Ryan Elder, who led the study, which is published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology, said:
“In a way, you’re becoming tired of that taste without even eating the food.
It’s sensory boredom — you’ve kind of moved on. You don’t want that taste experience any more.”
The reason for this difference seems to be in how framing exercise affects people’s search for rewards:
“Engaging in a physical activity seems to trigger the search for reward when individuals perceive it as exercise but not when they perceive it as fun.”.
So the best advice is: stop ‘exercising’ and go out and have fun.
The research, published in the journal Health Psychology, found that people who ate nothing recovered from a bad mood just as quickly as those who ate their preferred comfort food.
The researchers concluded:
“We found no justification for people to choose comfort foods when they are distressed.
Removing an excuse for eating a high-calorie or high-fat food may help people develop and maintain healthier eating habits, and may lead them to focus on other, food-free methods of improving their mood.
You don’t need comfort food to feel better; the mind will do the trick all on its own if you give it time.”
5. A protein-rich breakfast reduces food cravings
New research shows that eating a good breakfast — particularly one rich in protein — boosts a critical neurotransmitter, which may lower food cravings later in the day.
Dr. Heather Leidy, an assistant professor of nutrition and exercise physiology who led the study, said:
“Our research showed that people experience a dramatic decline in cravings for sweet foods when they eat breakfast.
However, breakfasts that are high in protein also reduced cravings for savory — or high-fat — foods.
On the other hand, if breakfast is skipped, these cravings continue to rise throughout the day.”
6. Why sleep deprivation leads to junk food craving
After disturbed sleep, there was increased activity in the depths of the brain, which is generally associated with rewards and automatic behaviour.
The frontal lobes, just behind and above the eyes, which help provide self-control, were less active.
The finding may help explain why the sleep-deprived are more likely to give in to calorific temptations.
One of the study’s authors, Matthew Walker, explained:
“”What we have discovered is that high-level brain regions required for complex judgments and decisions become blunted by a lack of sleep, while more primal brain structures that control motivation and desire are amplified.”
7. Diets make you less happy overall
A new study of almost 2,000 overweight and obese adults in the UK has found that those who lost weight were unhappier than those who remained within 5% of their original weight.
Dr. Sarah Jackson, the study’s lead author, pointed out that the reason may be that diets tend to make you miserable:
“Resisting the ever-present temptations of unhealthy food in modern society takes a mental toll, as it requires considerable willpower and may involve missing out on some enjoyable activities.
Anyone who has ever been on a diet would understand how this could affect well-being.”
8. Pay attention to your emotions
Learning to pay attention to your emotions is a more powerful weight-loss strategy than greater nutritional knowledge, a new study finds.
A group of people were given a nutritional knowledge course and they were taught to recognise basic emotions in both themselves and other people.
At the end of the training session participants were asked to choose a snack.
Those who had had the emotion training were more likely to choose the healthier option.
The study’s authors concluded:
“With a better understanding of how they feel and how to use emotions to make better decisions, people will not only eat better, they will also likely be happier and healthier because they relate better to others and are more concerned with their overall well-being.”
Learning about the nutritional value of food is not enough to achieve weight loss.
Learning about the nutritional value of food is not enough to achieve weight loss.
Learning to pay attention to your emotions is a more powerful weight-loss strategy than greater nutritional knowledge, a new study finds.
With obesity rates rising, many policy-makers argue that nutritional education will help people make better decisions.
The new research, though, points to the greater benefits of learning to understand and respond to your own inner states over and above nutritional education.
In one study, published in the Journal of Marketing Research, a group of people were given a nutritional knowledge course and they were taught to recognise basic emotions in both themselves and other people (Kidwell et al., 2014).
A comparison group was given just the nutritional knowledge course.
Part of the emotion training involved being presented with food products and asked to notice how this changed their own emotions, and those of other people.
At the end of the training session participants were asked to choose a snack.
Those who had had the emotion training were more likely to choose the healthier option.
The reason the emotion training is so useful is that people generally find it hard to be objective and observe their emotions dispassionately.
In another similar study reported in the same paper, people were followed over a three month period to see who lost weight.
Those who had had the emotion training lost most weight in comparison to a control group, and in comparison to those who had received the nutritional knowledge course.
Part of the reason the emotion training works is it breaks down an automatic link in people’s minds between foods being unhealthy and foods being tasty.
Without this automatic link, and by recognising the emotions associated with certain foods, it’s easier to make more healthy choices.
The study’s authors said:
“Consumers are often mindless.
We not only demonstrate that emotional ability is trainable and that food choices can be enhanced, but also that emotional ability training improves food choices beyond a nutrition knowledge training program.”
They conclude:
“With a better understanding of how they feel and how to use emotions to make better decisions, people will not only eat better, they will also likely be happier and healthier because they relate better to others and are more concerned with their overall well-being.”
81% of people believed comfort foods improve a low mood, but are they correct?
81% of people believed comfort foods improve a low mood, but are they correct?
Contrary to what most people believe, comfort food does not improve a low mood, a new study finds.
The research, published in the journal Health Psychology, found that people who ate nothing recovered from a bad mood just as quickly as those who ate their preferred comfort food (Wagner et al., 2014).
The results come from a study in which people were asked to list the type of foods they ate to recover from a bad mood — chocolate was the most popular.
They then watched an 18-minute video that was guaranteed to make them anxious, afraid and depressed.
After watching the depressing video, (across three different studies) people were given either:
Their preferred comfort food.
A neutral food (a granola bar).
No food.
Then their mood was measured.
Here is how the researchers describe their results, which were pretty clear-cut:
“Comfort foods led to significant improvements in mood, but no more than other foods or no food.
Although people believe that comfort foods provide them with mood benefits, comfort foods do not provide comfort beyond that of other foods (or no food).”
The fact that all groups felt better after a time is likely due to the psychological immune system, our natural ability to recover from bad moods.
So, people were giving the credit to the comfort food for something their minds were doing automatically.
The researchers conclude:
“We found no justification for people to choose comfort foods when they are distressed.
Removing an excuse for eating a high-calorie or high-fat food may help people develop and maintain healthier eating habits, and may lead them to focus on other, food-free methods of improving their mood.
You don’t need comfort food to feel better; the mind will do the trick all on its own if you give it time.”
What you should eat for the ‘most important meal of the day’.
What you should eat for the ‘most important meal of the day’.
New research shows that eating a good breakfast — particularly one rich in protein — boosts a critical neurotransmitter, which may lower food cravings later in the day.
The research comes as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that many teens skip breakfast and adolescent obesity has quadrupled in the last 30 years.
Dr. Heather Leidy, an assistant professor of nutrition and exercise physiology who led the study, said:
“Our research showed that people experience a dramatic decline in cravings for sweet foods when they eat breakfast.
However, breakfasts that are high in protein also reduced cravings for savory — or high-fat — foods.
On the other hand, if breakfast is skipped, these cravings continue to rise throughout the day.”
The study looked at how different breakfasts affected the levels of the critical neurotransmitter, dopamine (Hoertel et al., 2014).
Dopamine is involved in how we process rewards, including cravings for food.
When you eat, a burst of dopamine is initiated, which gives you the feelings of reward.
Dr. Leidy explained how this relates to obesity:
“Dopamine levels are blunted in individuals who are overweight or obese, which means that it takes much more stimulation — or food — to elicit feelings of reward; we saw similar responses within breakfast-skippers.
To counteract the tendencies to overeat and to prevent weight gain that occurs as a result of overeating, we tried to identify dietary behaviors that provide these feelings of reward while reducing cravings for high-fat foods.
Eating breakfast, particularly a breakfast high in protein, seems to do that.”
This is particularly important, Dr. Leidy, given the rising levels of obesity:
“In the U.S., people are skipping breakfast more frequently, which is associated with food cravings, overeating and obesity.
“It used to be that nearly 100 percent of American adults, kids and teens were eating breakfast, but over the last 50 years, we have seen a decrease in eating frequency and an increase in obesity.”
Wow!!! This is surely one of the most counter-intuitive dieting tips ever.
Wow!!! This is surely one of the most counter-intuitive dieting tips ever.
Looking at endless pictures of foods can make them less enjoyable to eat, a recent study has found.
While a few photos might enhance the appetite, contrary to what you’d expect, people are actually put off the taste by looking at loads of pictures of food.
Professor Ryan Elder, who led the study, which is published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology, said:
“In a way, you’re becoming tired of that taste without even eating the food.
It’s sensory boredom — you’ve kind of moved on. You don’t want that taste experience any more.”
What’s happening is that each time you look at another photograph of some food, you get less pleasure from it.
Like the first taste of chocolate mousse giving you a frisson, the first photograph whets your appetite.
But each subsequent picture — like each subsequent mouthful of mousse — is less and less exciting, until you get sick of it.
The Instagram diet
In the studies themselves, hundreds of people looked at and rated pictures of food (Larson et al., 2013).
One experiment had half the participants looking at pictures of salty foods like French fries and pretzels, while the other half looked at sweet foods like ice cream and chocolate.
Afterwards, they rated their pleasure from eating both salty and sweet foods.
People who’d been looking at salty foods gave lower pleasure ratings to the salty foods and people who’d been looking at sweet pictures gave lower ratings to the sweet foods.
The study found that the more pictures they looked at, the less pleasure people got from related foods.
Professor Elder explained:
“You do have to look at a decent number of pictures to get these effects.
It’s not like if you look at something two or three times you’ll get that satiated effect.
That’s good news for food-photo enthusiasts, because, let’s be honest, showing everyone the awesome food you’re eating really is cool.”
For those trying to enhance their pleasure, rather than reduce it, co-author, Jeff Larson, had this advice:
“If you want to enjoy your food consumption experience, avoid looking at too many pictures of food.
Even I felt a little sick to my stomach during the study after looking at all the sweet pictures we had.”
When low-fat foods are bad, why people eat tuna eyes and fried bat, America’s dysfunctional relationship with food and more…
When low-fat foods are bad, why people eat tuna eyes and fried bat, America’s dysfunctional relationship with food and more…
We invest food with so much meaning, and rightly so: it changes our mood, it strengthens our relationships when we eat together and food choices express who we are.
But food has a dark side. We worry about eating unhealthy, about weight gain and how we can control our intake. Eating is not just pleasure; it is also about the struggle with ourselves.
In the last few decades we’ve learnt an enormous amount about the psychology of food. Here are 20 of my favourite findings.
1. America’s terrible relationship with food
Americans have a very dysfunctional relationship with food.
Compared with the French, Belgians and Japanese, Americans get less pleasure from food and are most obsessed with whether it is ‘healthy’ or not (Rozin et al., 1999).
In contrast, the French have fewer hang-ups and enjoy their food the most. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that they are also half as likely to be obese as Americans.
Americans, then, get the worst of all worlds: they are more dissatisfied with what they eat, are more concerned about whether it is healthy, try to make more dietary changes and are twice as likely to be obese as the French.
Something has clearly gone badly wrong with America’s relationship with food.
2. You don’t know when you’re really full
We tend to think that the amount of food we eat is a result of how hungry we are. It’s a factor, but not the only one. We are also affected by the size of the plates, serving spoons, packets and so on.
This has been most memorably demonstrated in a study where participants ate out of a soup bowl that was filled up secretly from under the table (Wansink et al., 2005). Others were served more soup in the usual way. Those eating out of the magically refilling bowl had almost twice as much soup but felt no less hungry and no more full.
The moral of this strange tale is that our stomachs provide only crude messages about how much we’ve eaten. Instead we rely on our vision and the eye is easily fooled.
Here’s my healthy eating tip: force yourself to buy smaller packets of everything. Oh, and get rid of your automatically refilling soup-bowls: they’re really doing you no good at all.
3. Fat = bad?
This is a great example of the law of unintended consequences.
Many people have come to believe that high-fat food is bad. Public health campaigns, books and articles in the 80s promoted this idea.
Here are the problems. Not all fats are bad; in fact some are very good, necessary parts of our diet. As a result people avoid small snacks with high-fat content in favour of large snacks with low-fat content. In reality the low-fat snack may have way more calories simply because it’s much bigger.
Because people think that fat=bad, some foods get unfairly categorised as bad for us, while other low-fat foods are supposed to be good. This leads to the situation were people regularly under-estimate the amount of calories in low-fat, ‘good’ foods and over-estimate the calories in high-fat ‘bad’ foods (Carels et al., 2006). The difference in that study worked out to about 35%.
The same is true in restaurants where dishes billed as ‘healthy’ are estimated by diners to contain up to 35% less calories than they really do.
4. It’s never ‘just lunch’
Eating together has powerful psychological overtones.
Lunch is a serious undertaking, especially when it’s with an ex-partner, according to a study by Kniffin and Wansink (2012). They found that compared with things like having a coffee or talking on the telephone when their partners had lunch with an old flame, it provoked the most jealousy.
The symbolic power of eating with other people is strong: it’s never ‘just lunch’.
5. Taste fades with age
As we age, our sense of taste gets weaker. One study found that the ability to detect salt was most affected, as was the ability to detect ‘umami’, now considered one of the basic tastes, along with sweet, sour, salty and bitter (Mojet et al., 2001).
Depending on the exact taste, older people may need between 2 and 9 times as much of a condiment like salt to experience the same taste. Men seem to be particularly affected by this loss in the ability to taste.
The reason is partly that older people have fewer taste buds but mainly that the sense of smell weakens with age. We actually taste much of our food with our noses, so when the nose doesn’t work so well, taste sensation is lost as well.
6. Carrots taste weird for breakfast
We tend to think that there’s something intrinsic about say, a carrot, that means we either like it or don’t. But a simple thought experiment shows this isn’t true.
What if you had to eat a carrot, on its own, at six o’clock in the morning? Does it taste the same then as it does mixed in with other vegetables and meat, and eaten at the ‘usual’ time of day?
No.
The context in which food is eaten affects us much more than we might imagine. This includes the time of day, who is around us and where we are.
7. Fat waitress = fat customer
Here’s a case in point for how context affects what you might choose from the menu in a restaurant. McFerran et al. (2010) looked at how the effect of your server’s body-weight might affect what you choose.
They found that people who were dieting ate more food when encouraged to choose unhealthy snacks by an obese waitress than when the waitress was thin. You might have predicted exactly the reverse result—surely an obese server will put you off your food. Apparently not. Instead it may unconsciously give people who are dieting ‘permission’ to overeat. In other words: if she can overeat, so can I!
Incidentally exactly the opposite effect was seen for those who weren’t dieting. They ended up eating more when the waitress was thin. This may be simply because attractive (thin) people tend to be more persuasive.
8. Fat friends = fat self
It’s probably going too far to say that having fat friends causes us to be fat ourselves, although there is evidence for this. Christakis et al. (2007) found that people’s chance of being obese was increased by 57% if they had obese friends.
Still, it’s very safe to say that people are enormously influenced by the eating behaviour of those around them. We clearly see in studies that people eat more when those around them eat more, and less when those around them eat less. Women seem particularly susceptible to this.
Even while eating on our own we are indirectly influenced in our choices by society—psychologists call these ‘social norms’. When norms are manipulated in experiments, people can be made to eat less or more at will.
One great example is that manly men are thought to eat big meals and feminine women eat small meals. Hence: a steak for the ‘gentleman’ and a salad for the ‘lady’.
9. Eating intentions are beaten by habits
What’s the best way to predict what food you’re going to eat tomorrow? Should I ask about your intentions, your preferences or that diet you’ve just started?
Don’t bother. All I need to do is ask you what you ate yesterday. The best way to predict what you’re going to eat tomorrow is to examine your habits. On average habits tend to trump our best intentions and even our stated preferences.
Changing our eating habits is hard because so many decisions are made automatically, in response to routine situations we find ourselves in, and also because of…
10. Mindless eating
Eating is so routine that we easily zone out from the experience. While our minds are wandering, though, our hands are shovelling it in faster and faster.
Studies have shown that people eat more when they are distracted, like when watching TV or talking with friends (Bolhuis et al., 2013). Unfortunately when not focusing on our food, we tend to eat more and get less enjoyment from it.
This is why one approach that’s used to combat eating disorders and obesity is mindful eating. This is taking smaller bites and paying more attention to what you are eating. Not only do people eat less this way, but they also enjoy it more.
11. Suppressing food thoughts leads to bingeing
Regular readers of this blog will probably be bored witless with me going on about how trying to suppress a thought makes it come back stronger. Sorry. Here we go again.
The same is true for food. People on diets who habitually try to suppress their thoughts about food are more likely to experience food cravings as well as being more prone to binge eating (Barnes & Tantleff-Dunn, 2010).
Unfortunately this seems to be a widely held belief, or at least way of behaving. In studies, when people are given the same food, but in one instance it is labelled more healthy, they will eat more than when it is labelled unhealthy. In Provencher et al. (2009), it was 35% more.
It’s another situation in which so-called healthy foods can be bad for us because they encourage higher consumption.
13. Anyone for smoked salmon ice-cream?
Food labels and the expectations they set up have all kinds of effects on how we experience food. Most people have now heard about the studies where they put fancy labels on ordinary bottles of wines and magically people say they taste better. It’s the same effect if you tell people the wine is really expensive (read more here).
Here’s a weirder one, though. Researchers came up with a strange new concoction: smoked salmon ice-cream (Yeomans et al., 2008). But they told some people it was a new type of ice-cream and another group that it was a frozen savoury mousse.
People hated the food when they were told it was a type of ice-cream, but found it acceptable when told it was a mousse.
So it’s all very well putting fancy labels on things, but they’ve got to set up the right expectations.
14. Label it full-fat and it tastes better
Forget about weird ice-cream, what if you take the same food and give it to some people telling them it is ‘full-fat’ and others that it’s ‘low-fat’?
Well, they say that the ‘full-fat’ option tastes better, but they eat less (Wardle & Solomons, 1994). This effect seems to be strongest for people who are most worried about the effect of the food they eat on their health (Westcombe & Wardle, 1997).
15. Bad moods make you eat bad stuff
‘Emotional eating’ is the idea that the emotions, not just hunger, affect how and what we eat. There is some truth to this.
In experiments, generally when people are put in a bad mood, they are more likely to reach for sugary and high-fat snacks. Negative emotions also make people prefer a snack rather than a proper meal and eat fewer vegetables.
Unfortunately good moods don’t necessarily make you eat good stuff. People do seem to eat more when they are in a good mood, but just more of everything rather than specific foods.
16. Healthy foods improve your mood
We know that people who eat more fruit and vegetables are generally more satisfied with life and happier, but we couldn’t be sure that it was the fruit and vegetables that were really causing it.
The very latest research, however, suggests that eating fruit and vegetables one day can actually improve your mood the next day (White et al., 2013). This is based on the idea that micronutrients like folates found in fruits and vegetables can help improve depression.
In their 21-day study White et al. (2013) asked participants to log how much fruit and vegetables they ate as well as their mood. This showed that eating more fruit and vegetables one day actually predicted mood the next day. However, they needed to eat 7 or 8 servings for the effect to be clear. So the oft-recommended 5 portions may not be enough to get the full boost to mood.
17. I won’t have what she’s having
Have you ever been to a restaurant in a group, chosen what you’re going to eat, then heard a couple of other people order the same thing and changed your mind?
According to one study this is a recognisable trend (Ariely & Levav, 2000). One of the causes is the desire to be individual and stand out. Ordering something different seems to express individuality.
The punch-line, however, is that in Ariely & Levav’s study, people enjoyed their second choices less than their first. Sometimes being different for the sake of it is a kind of conformity (see what I did there to make you feel better about ordering the same thing as other people? Go on, have what you really want!).
18. Small changes beat weird crash diets
If you want to lose weight, forget all those weird diets, whatever they are. The latest fad is the 5:2 diet where you eat normally for five days and fast for two. There’s almost no evidence this works. These sorts of extreme diets require big changes to habits, which, as I describe in my book, are hard to make.
Instead of all those crazy diets, it’s much better to make small changes that are sustainable in the long-term: by which I mean the rest of your life. Participants in a recent online healthy eating study made very small sustainable changes to their habits and succeeded in losing weight (Kaipainen et al., 2012). Note that they lost weight without going on a diet!
The habits to adopt included: put down your utensils between bites, use smaller plates, drink water with every meal or snack and don’t eat directly from the package. It was that simple.
19. The Pepsi challenge
In the same way that lunch is never ‘just’ lunch, food is never ‘just’ food. It can also represent an idea and that can influence how we experience the food itself.
Here’s an example: Allen et al. (2008) did a version of the Pepsi challenge. Participants were given either Pepsi or a store-brand cola to assess.
Pepsi’s advertising encourages the idea that life should be exciting and full of enjoyment whereas store-brand cola doesn’t particularly have any marketing message.
The results showed that those who most strongly agreed that life should be full of excitement thought the cola they were told was Pepsi was more tasty. The trick was that often they were just drinking the store-brand cola.
So it’s not just the actual taste that affects our evaluations but the beliefs we have about that food or drink.
20. I’m eating an idea and it’s a tasty one!
What weird foods have you eaten? Fried bat or tarantulas, an ox penis or tuna eyes?
Perhaps you’ve been involved in this type of conversation. People start listing all sorts of exotic foods they once tasted—each trying to outdo the last. What’s that about? According to one theory we don’t just eat food, we eat ideas.
People know, for example, that bacon ice-cream will taste unusual, but there is a clear pay-off in conceptual consumption. It’s not just bragging rights, they also like the very idea of each of these things and they want to ‘possess’ the experience.
It’s also about self-image. People want to see themselves, and be seen by others, as interesting people who choose a variety of different experiences for themselves. (Hence the fried-bat-chat.)
