Food Psychology by Brian Wansink, Jacob Staples (best ereader for epub .txt) 📕

Danger Zone - Home

The less you cook, the more you eat. When people cook most of their meals at home, they consume fewer carbohydrates, less sugar and less fat than those who barely cook at all - says Julia Wolfson of John Hopkins University. In a study she found that people who only cook once a week put away 2,301 calories per day. Those who cook at least six times per week consume 2,164 calories per day.

 

The louder, the fatter. Building work and plane noise, music on the radio, a loud TV - research by Swedens Karolinska Institute found that, if you increase the noise by 5 decibels, your waist line will grow by an average of 1.5cm. This is down to an increase in stress hormones, like cortisol, which are triggered by the noise.

 

The bigger the plate, the greater the hunger. Crockery size and cutlery plays an important role: for example, we’ll eat 25% less when it’s from a plate with a diameter of 25cm, instead of 30cm - regardless of how large the portion is. Likewise, if you use a tablespoon instead of a ladle to serve up, you’ll give yourself 14% less.

 

The closer the food, the greedier we become. Accessibility plays a crucial role in eating behaviour: the more foods are in reach, the more difficult they are to resist. Psychologist Brian Wansink advises plating food up before serving, rather than allowing people to help themselves at the table. We eat 19% less as a result.

 

Danger Zone - Supermarket

 

The longer the aisle, the more we’ll pick up. The long rows of shelves that customers have to pass on their way to the till means we’re tempted to buy more products than we wanted. The more food you take home, the more you’ll eat.

 

The lower, the better. Items at eye level are easier to spot, which means supermarkets position their upmarket brands there. Clearance products are typically placed nearer the floor, with cheaper versions of branded products above them at waist height. A quick glance down can save a lot of money.

 

The slower we are, the more we buy. When we enter a supermarket, we’re confronted by shelves and corners. Without realising, we slow down. Displays of fresh fruit and vegetables slow us down even further with the aroma of market. The reason these are placed by the entrace? According to studies, the longer we stay in the supermarket, the more items we’ll take notice of and buy.

Danger Zone - Restaurant

 

The darker the environment, the less healthy the food. Diners sitting furthest away from the windows and door ”eat the least number of salads and are 73% more likely to order dessert” explains Brian Wansink. ”Sitting by a window, on the other hand, could make you more subtly conscious of how you look and make a green salad more appealing”.

 

The closer to the buffet, the more overweight the diner. In all you can eat resteraunts, overweight people usually pick a table close to the buffet and are three times more likely to sit in sight of the food than thin people, skinny diners often sit with their back to the food.

 

The bigger the group, the larger the portions. The portion sizes become larger when there are more people around the dinner table - up to twice as big. When we’re in a group of people, we eat up to 44% more than usual. The eating behavior of others plays an especially important role: if the people around us are eating a lot, we will too. However, if they put less on their plates, we’ll also hold ourselves back.

 

The wider the glass, the more we’ll drink. If you’re given a wine glass in a resteraunt - instead of a tall one - you’ll drink, on average, 19% more. The waiter can squeeze in 32% more glass is wide and flat. The brain perceives vertical lines to be longer than horizontal ones so it is confused by the shape of the glass.

What’s the difference between starvation and a diet?

 From the brains perspective every food shortage, be it a voluntary weight loss programme or actual starvation, is treated like an energy crisis. In both instances, the brain implements emergency measures: it activates stress responses to make us search for food.

Why do diets make our skin age faster?

 When you reduce your calorie intake, you’re robbing your brain of energy. The brain declares a state of emergency to prevent this - and the level of cortisol in the body increases. The result? Fatty tissue is drawn out from areas such as the face and stored as abdominal fat. Cortisol also accelorates the ageing of skin and connective tissues.

Can a blood test reveal if we’re likely to become fat?

 Slim people with a raised insulin level have an almost 100% risk of becoming obese in the future. Insulin is a hormone that helps the body convert blood sugar into energy. A high level of insulin is an early warning sign of a disturbed brain pull (see point 4).

Why do overweight people keep eating, even though their body has enough stored energy?

 Normally the brain draws energy from its reserves in the body (fat, muscles). If the ability to do this (known as competent brain pull) is disturbed, the brain is starved of energy. It becomes more dependant on the energy that circulates as glucosein the blood and demands more and more food. Overweight people suffer from a lack of energy, even though their bodily reserves are fully stocked - their brains have lost the key to opening these reserves.

What happens to my brain when i go on a diet?

 The brains stress response is activated during an energy crisis, such as a diet. During a diet, the brains stress response can’t return to its normal mode, meaning that the cortisol level is continuously raised. Too much cortisol can cause our connective tissue to age and leads to severe mood swings - even depression. Moreover, the brain and its stress reflex can’t get used to the diet mode. Physiologically, its simply impossible because the energy requirements of the brain can’t be altered. It’s like thinking you can reduce the fuel consumption of a car simply by filling it up with less petrol.