Thursday, December 3, 2009
Choosing a healthy salad or a greasy cheeseburger (with extra bacon) for dinner may seem to depend on your mood, but you may also be ordering based on the person sitting across from you.
Finger-lickin’ good? Studies show many factors can contribute to the amount you eat, including not just your mood but also whom you eat with, how large your plate and portions are and how aware you are how many calories you’ve eaten.
A study published in The Journal of Consumer Research in August found that people eat more when dining with a skinny person who eats a lot than with an obese person who overeats.
The study observed how much food participants (undergraduate women from the University of British Columbia) put on their plates after watching either a skinny or an obese person load up first. The experiment found that participants mimicked the behavior of the skinny person — when she took both small and large portions — and did the opposite of the obese person.
How much we eat often has more to do with social and environmental cues than with feeling full, says Nancy Hamilton, associate professor of psychology. And we often imitate others’ eating habits unconsciously.
Other factors that affect how much you eat
PLATE SIZE
Different plate sizes change how much you eat. A smaller plate makes the same portion look bigger, which helps you feel full faster. But using a bigger plate when serving yourself means you’re going to pile on the food and eat more because of it.
PORTION SIZE
The more food on your plate, the more you’re going to eat before feeling full. Eating is an evolutionary adaptive trait, says Nancy Hamilton, associate professor of psychology. Our ancestors ate what was there and consumed as much as they could at that time because the food wouldn’t always be there, she says.
AWARENESS
People are generally oblivious to how much they’re eating, Hamilton says. Studies have found that people underestimate the number of calories they’re consuming in a meal by aboutπ 500 calories, she says.
WEIGHT-OBSESSED CULTURE
The results of the study may also reflect our culture — where thin is in.
Most people don’t pursue obesity as a goal, but a lot of people do work to get thinner, says Darren Dahl, applied marketing research professor at the University of British Columbia and one of the authors of the study. People may mimic a slim person’s behavior because they see thinness as desirable, he says.
With stick-thin celebrities and scrawny models on TV and in magazines, people probably do try to follow their example, says Meredith Chait, Chicago freshman.
People tend to imitate others not just with eating, but in any type of consumer behavior — whether that’s buying this season’s plaid shirt or not ordering dessert. Women and girls especially feel pressure to follow others’ behavioral patterns, says Brent McFerran, assistant professor of marketing at the University of British Columbia and one of the authors of the study.
A SOCIAL SETTING
Often, eating turns into a social experience. And people use different eating habits when they eat by themselves or in a group — frequently eating more with a group. “Just look at Thanksgiving,” Dahl says.
The comfort level of the people you eat with also affects how you eat. “No one wants to be the only person in a group of 10 to order dessert,” McFerran says.
Although Kori Talbott, Kansas City, Kan., senior, considers herself a healthy eater, she tends to eat more unhealthy foods with family and friends because she doesn’t worry about them judging her.
Next time your friends decide to supersize their meals, think about it before you load up, too. Or at least you can blame them for it, right?
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