Mindless Eating

There are numerous studies addressing the question of how aware people are of the food-related decisions they make and how the environment influences these decisions. This study is nice in its simplicity and the magnitude of the effect found. Wansink & Sobal (2007) show that people underestimated the number of food-related decisions they made—by an average of more than 221 decisions! Participants overate 31% more food as a result of having been given an exaggerated environmental cue (such as a large bowl). Of those studied, 21% denied having eaten more, 75% attributed it to other reasons (such as hunger), and only 4% attributed it to the cue. The authors suggest that we are aware of only a fraction of the food decisions we make and that we are either unaware of how our environment influences these decisions or we are unwilling to acknowledge it.