How Do Our Eating Habits Relate To The Environment?
Author: Ivan Red Jr.
Time for reading: ~1
minutes
Last Updated:
August 08, 2022
A matter of habits. By associating a certain place with a specific type of food, we consume it, regardless of the quality of the product.
It turns out that we don't eat junk food just because it tastes good to us. By associating a certain place with a specific type of food, such as the cinema with popcorn, we consume a product by suggestion, regardless of its quality.
Researchers at the University of Southern California are developing a test to understand why we tend to overeat .
They offer cinemagoers fresh and older popcorn.
Movie buffs, who don't usually eat popcorn during a screening, consume significantly less old popcorn than fresh, logically because of their bad taste.
However, those who have a habit of eating popcorn in the cinema, eat the same amount of popcorn, regardless of when they are cooked.
The researchers conclude that for people who have formed the habit of consuming a particular product in the cinema, the quality and taste of food are not serious.
The study, published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin , helps to understand the processes of overeating and the factors that can cause us to eat, even when we are not hungry or do not like food.
When we repeatedly consume a certain food in a certain environment , our brain associates the food with the environment and stimulates us to continue eating while the signals of the environment are present, explains lead researcher David Neal.
To give up unhealthy habits, sometimes the will and good intentions are not enough. We need to "mislead" our brains by controlling the environment, experts say.
In another experiment, researchers found that eating habits could be disrupted after participants ate popcorn with their non-dominant hand - ie. with the left hand, if the right hand is leading. This provokes them to pay more attention to what exactly they consume.
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