How many times have you found yourself munching away while watching television, talking on the phone or working on the computer? How large are your dinner plates? How often do you go out to eat with a group of six or more people? How colorful are your meals? All of these things can contribute to mindless eating - and eventual weight gain.
According to Dr. Brian Wansink, author of the book Mindless Eating, we make over 200 diet decisions per day without even realizing it. In his book, Dr. Wansink explains that most of us don't overeat because we're hungry; rather it is because of family and friends, packages and plates, names and numbers, labels and lights, colors and candles, shapes and smells, distractions and distances, cupboards and containers.
In his "food laboratory", Dr. Wansink has conducted hundreds of studies in an attempt to discover why we eat the way we do. This "Sherlock Holmes" of eating has missed nothing in his examination of our eating habits. Some of his studies have shown:
- Deep pasta bowls and large plates increase food consumption by 20 percent.
- The more shades of color on your plate, the more you'll eat.
- When dining with six or more people you'll eat 96 percent more than when you eat alone.
- When snacking at home, cleaning up the evidence (candy wrappers, soda cans, etc...) will encourage you to unknowingly eat more.
- Men's comfort foods = steak, pasta, pizza, burgers and other meal-related comfort foods.
- Women's comfort foods = snack foods like cookies, chocolate and ice cream. Why this difference? Women associated the meal-related foods with work, like cooking and cleanup, and there's no comfort in that!
- Dr. Wansink believes that our stomach has three settings: We either 1) feel like we're starving, 2) feel like we're stuffed, or 3) feel as if we can eat more. Most of the time we're somewhere in the middle, we're neither hungry nor full, but if something is put in front of us, we'll eat it.
- People who watch a lot of television exercise less, eat more and weigh more than those who watch less television.
Mindless Eating describes particular "diet danger zones" - meal stuffing, snack grazing, party binging, restaurant indulging and desktop dining. What is your most common danger zone? We are all guilty of these at different times, but there are ways to take control of your eating habits. One way to limit your mindless eating is to keep a food journal every day. Keeping a journal of everything that goes into your body will hold you accountable and force you to pay attention to what you're eating. Instead of just munching away at a bag of potato chips while watching television, you'll want to measure a serving of potato chips so you'll know exactly what to include in your food journal. Try this - if you're consistent, it will work!
Take the "Are You a Mindless Eater?" quiz and pick up a copy of Dr. Wansink's Mindless Eating today to identify your mindless eating habits and how you can take control over what goes into your body every day.
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Check out the below video of Dr. Wansink explaining some of the ideas behind Mindless Eating.
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