The Eating Myths: Who is REALLY Making Us Fat?

Every year the Center for Disease Control (CDC) analyzes data from the national population on our overall health.  As you can see from the trend sheet below Americans are failing, and in a big way.

 What will this look like in the year 2025?  Take a look:

 "Yup"...Fat.  But who should we really be blaming?  Is it our fault we keep getting fatter and fatter, or our environment?  There are three eating myths developed by Brian Wansink, PhD that explain our environment may have more influence on our increasing waistline than people really think.

Eating Myth #1: "Surely something as basic as the size of a bowl wouldn't influence how much an informed, intelligent person eats..."

When looking at the size of plates, bowls, and glasses from thirty years ago to today, its amazing to see how they have changed...to a bigger size, that is.  But does that automatically mean that Americans are eating more?  Can't we monitor how much we actually we put on our enormous plates?  I'm sure we could, but do we?  No.

A study conducted on 150 MBA students in Minnesota shows this.  The students went through 90 minutes of  education on correct portion sizes and what a true serving of carbohyrate, protein, and fat looks like.  All 150 were then invited to a Super Bowl party 6 weeks later at a sports bar.  They were randomly appointed to a room in the bar.  Room 1 had three 4-liter bowls full of Chex Mix; Room 2 had six 2-liter bowls full of Chex Mix, and the bowls were given out to the MBA students upon entering one of the rooms.  They were tested to see how the size of the bowl influenced how much the students ate.  The results?  On average, the students in Room 1 ate 53% more Chex Mix than the students in Room 2.  When asked how full they felt, there was no significant difference in feelings of fullness between the students in each room. 

 OK, but what if we didn't like the food being served?  Would big plates and bowls alone lead us to eat more food even if it was something we didn't necessarily like?

This was tested on 168 moviegoers in Chicago, IL seeing Mel Gibson's "Payback".  Each person was given a free pre-weighed large or extra large popcorn.  Half of the bags contained fresh popcorn and half of the bags contained 5-day-old popcorn, which was stale.  The bags were randomly given out to all 168 moviegoers.  After the movie, the moviegoers were asked how much they thought they ate, and the remaining popcorn was weighed.  Results showed:

• Moviegoers ate 45% more fresh popcorn from the extra large bags than the large ones.
• Even when the bag contained the 5-day-old stale popcorn, moviegoers ate 34% more from the extra large bags than the large ones.

 So, do we overeat the foods we like or do we overeat the foods we have?  Environmental factors may affect how much we eat more than the taste and quality of the food.  Doubling the size of a container causes an 18-25% increase in consumption of meals and 30-45% increase in consumption of snacks

Eating Myth #2: "OK, so people serve more from big bowls and plates and wide glasses.  At least they know when they are full and they can stop before they overeat..."

Say you were given as much of your favorite food as you could ever want.  How much would you eat?  Would you keep eating if your plate never emptied?

That was a question explored by a study cleverly named "The Bottomless Soup Bowl" done on 54 individuals about 11 years ago in the United States.  Half of the participants were given regular 22oz normal soup bowls, and half of the participants were given 22oz soup bowls that were pressure fed underneath the table, that slowly refills as the participant eats out of the bowl.  What did the results find?  Those eating from the bottomless soup bowls unknowingly ate 73% more soup.  Furthermore, those eating from the bottomless soup bowls did not believe they had consumed more or felt more satiety than the others.

Eating Myth #3: "Most of the obesity problem has to do with food eaten away from the home..." 

Americans love to blame the obesity problem on restaurants and their fattening food choices.  But is that really the big issue here?  Should we really only be blaming restaurants for taking our control away?

Take the popular cookbook, The Joy of Cooking, that has numerous editions and has been around for about 75 years.  A study was conducted on each recipe that was found in every edition of The Joy of Cooking, from the first edition to the eighth and final edition.  The amount of calories and serving sizes were analyzed.  What did the results find?  All but one of the repeated recipes increased in calories and serving size.  The average increase in both calories and serving size was 63%.  Two-thirds of the increase was due to the more calorie-dense ingredients, and one-third of the increase was due to the larger serving sizes.  The biggest increases happened in the editions that came out in 1946, 1962, and 2006.

So what can we do?

If we are such mindless eaters, what sort of mindless solutions are out there? It seems our immediate environment causes us to overeat. The mindless solution to that particular problem would be to change our immediate environment to cause us to eat less. How can we do this? Well, the most mindless solution would be to use smaller plates, bowls, and narrow glasses, which will cut down on the amount of calories we take in. It has also been shown that we are more likely to choose to eat what is at eye level in our cupboards and refrigerator. Simply adjusting the eye level foods and rearranging cupboards by putting more nutritious foods at eye level can help "trick" us into eating more healthfully.

 

But which mindless changes work the best? In an experimental pilot study done by Brian Wansink at MindlessEating.org, 2000 volunteers were randomly assigned to make one small, simple change. Examples of changes they were asked to do were replacing wide glasses with thin ones, using only half of their plates for meals, using a salad plate (10-in plate) for a dinner plate, only eating in the kitchen or dining room, etc. There were 20 different changes, with 100 volunteers randomly assigned to each change. Their progress was tracked for 3 months. The results? The volunteers who used a salad plate (10-in plate) for their dinner plates lost an average of 1.97lbs per month. The volunteers who only ate in the kitchen or dining room lost an average of 1.58lbs per month. Surprisingly, chewing gum at times when the volunteer would normally be snacking caused the volunteers to gain an average of 0.62lbs per month, and eating oatmeal as a hot breakfast alternative caused the volunteers to gain an average of 0.83lbs per month. Results indicated that the more "mindless" or convenient the changes were, the more compliant the volunteers were; additionally, there was a 73% correlation between compliance and reported weight loss. For many, the third month (and beyond) had approximately 53% more weight loss than the first. Why would people start losing weight at a higher rate around that third month?

It's the Ripple Effect of one small change.  One small change has been shown to empower a person to make more changes.  Especially if that first change is measurable, achievable, and relevant.  

The power of changing your environment.  It can help change bad eating and snacking habits, and the studies have proven it.  Its so much easier to change your environment than to change your mind.

"The best diet is the diet you don't know your on."

**For more information on the Eating Myths and Mindless Eating, check out  Brian Wansink's MindlessEating.org **