Modelling

In a nutshell what studies on modelling tells us is that we eat more when we are with companions who eat more, and eat less when we are with companions who eat less. We mirror the eating behaviour of the people we are with.

In one study for example, an experimental confederate ate either 10 or 40 crackers and it was found that participants ate more when paired with a high-consumption confederate than when paired with a low consumption confederate. (A ‘confederate’ is a person whose behaviour is directed by the experimenter but who is meant to appear as if she were just another participant in the experiment)

Obesity is contagious

In another study which may relate to the concept of modelling, researchers found that obesity is contagious among friends;

We find that having four obese friends doubled people’s chance of becoming obese compared to people with no obese friends

–Alison Hill

Again other researchers found that;

obesity spread in social networks in a quantifiable and discernable pattern that depends on the nature of social ties. Moreover, social distance appears to be more important than geographic distance within these networks

This is particularly pronounced with friends of one’s own sex. Having an overweight neighbour seems not to increase one’s risk of becoming overweight oneself.

Likewise and probably less surprising, the person who handles the predominant shopping and cooking has an overwhelming influence on what is eaten in the household. Estimates based on various researches in the US are that this person drives approximately 60–80% choices in the household. Obviously these numbers will be affected by culture and eating patterns. This last point became all too obvious to a friend of mine, who recently went on a diet, just to realize that her children otherwise unprovoked started eating more healthy as a consequence.

Conclusion on the social influence on eating

With only a modest degree of oversimplification, we may conclude that:

•  When we eat in groups, we tend to eat more (social facilitation).
•  When we eat in the presence of others who we believe are observing or evaluating us in some sense or the other, we tend to eat less than when we eat alone – well, unless we misunderstand how to impress others or are (impression management).
•  When we eat in the presence of ‘models’ that consistently eat a lot or a little, we likewise tend to eat a lot or a little, respectively. Eating is contagious!
•  Doing the shopping and the cooking signifies influence and implicit responsibility!

References & recommended readinG

• Nicholas A. Christakis, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H., and James H. Fowler, Ph.D. “The Spread of Obesity in a Large Social Network Over 32 Years”, The New England journal of medicine.
• Nicholas Christakis: The Hidden Influence of Social Networks. (TED Talk)

Impression Management is the goal-directed conscious or unconscious process in which people attempt to influence other people’s perceptions of them through regulating and controlling information in social interactions.

Impression Management

While eating with others generally causes us to eat more, it can easily be turned on its head. This happens when we sense a need for doing some impression management. In one US study, females have been found to eat less, and males more when on a date. The males were under the illusion, as it turns out, that females find them manlier if they eat more. Other US studies show a correlation between the amount females eat and the attractiveness of the male they are with, eating the least with the most attractive men.

Similar studies indicate that we are more inclined to limit our eating when we are with people we don’t know. When eating with people we know such as friends and family, impression management may just be futile.

Utilizing this knowledge to your advantage

• If you want to reduce or control your caloric intake tell other people about your intentions. Our need for appearing consistent will strengthen our need for executing impression management and hence deliver a slight increase in our will power
• If you are under the impression that people will be impressed by your great appetite; grow up!

References & recommended reading

• Herman, Roth, and Polivy “Effects of the Presence of Others on Food Intake: A Normative Interpretation”, Psychological Bullitin 2003, Vol 129. No 6, 873–886.

There are several separate pieces of literature addressing social influences on food intake, focusing respectively on Social Facilitation, Modelling, and Impression Management.

Social facilitation

Social Facilitation is the phenomenon that our performance is altered due to the presence of others. The effect of social facilitation depends on the scenario; Maybe you will be able to lift a heavier weight in the training center when a good looking person of the opposite sex passes by, or maybe you are incapable of completing a complex task while a person stares at you working. So what is the effect of others on eating behaviour?

In one experiment it was found that participants ate on average 35% more when they dined with another person than when dining alone, about 75% more when dinning in a group of 4 and almost 100% more when dining with more than 7 people! So if you are eating slowly because you are enjoying dinner and conversation with a group of friends, don’t expect the slowness to decrease your caloric intake.

Several similar studies have led to similar conclusions. Scrutinizing these studies led to the conclusion that the reason is simple:

Being in the presence of food makes one likely to eat, and the longer one is in the presence of food, the more one eats

Hence eating in this version, is not really due to social control but results from palatable food cues, and extended socializing with family and friends simply extends one’s exposure to such cues.

UTILIZING THIS KNOWLEDGE TO YOUR ADVANTAGE

• · When eating in groups consider limiting how long time food should be made available or simple serve the food as portion sizes on plates rather than bowls on the table with the important exception of the delicious and healthy salad
• · If you are not in control of the situation serving wise, this might be a time for exercising ‘mindfulness’, the new buzzword for the surprising fact that concentrating on what you are doing actually makes you do it better. This coupled with the advice in previous entries and the advice of the two next entries will enable you to enjoy social situations without overeating.

Eating Pace & Gender

However, other studies have delivered mixed results. One study for instance showed that while the male participants ate less when they ate half their normal rate, the female participants did not. Both the male and the female participants ate less if they started at their normal pace, and then slowed to half their normal eating pace. Being an experiment, a computer told the participants at what pace to eat.

Correlation or Causation

In other experiments participants were told to take smaller bites and/or to put down the cutlery in between their bites. These experiments have been conducted with various setups and have led to different conclusions – sometimes even that the participant’s ate more when they were requested to eat slower. While eating slowly as a rule of thumb correlate with eating less it might often be merely a correlation and not the cause of the lesser caloric intake.

Slow isn’t always less

In one experiment researchers found that by changing the music in a restaurant between fast and slow music, they could make people stay an extra 11 minutes longer spending a total of 56 minutes on average in the restaurant. This increased their drink spending from an average of 21$ to 30$ but did not increase their meal spending.

Chewing Characteristics

With regard to eating pace, an interesting feature of typical fast food is that it requires less chewing than more traditional cooking. If you eat proper food you will typically find that you chew 20–30 times before swallowing. If you eat overly processed food, the archetypal fast food, you will find that you typically chew no more than 5–12 times before swallowing. By eliminating the need to chew we are stimulated to eat faster, and we end up overeating well before the caloric impact ignites our senses and has time to send a stop signal.

References & recommended reading

• · Alexander Kokkinos et al. (2009) “Eating Slowly Increases the Postprandial Response of the Anorexigenic Gut Hormones, Peptide YY and Glucagon-Like Peptide-1? J Clin Endocrin Metab.
• · C. K. Martin et al. (2007)“Slower Eating reduces Food Uptake of Men, but not Women: Implications of Bahavioural Weight Control” Behaviour Research and Therapy.
• · Ronald E. Milliman “The Influence of Background Music on the Behaviour of Restaurant Patrons” Journal of Consumer Research.
• · David A. Kessler “The End of Overeating: Taking Control of our Insatiable Appetite”.

Rather than trying to exercise willpower I will strike pre-emptively by bringing a bottle of water, and a nutritious snack which will render the visit to the gasoline station superfluous. Secondly it will function as an anchor for reminding me of the behaviour I want to practice. Making the preferred behaviour recur quickly makes it a habit, and once that is the case, I am less likely to backslide when I have forgotten the bottle of water, or the snack. Now needing a snack is no longer associated with a visit to the gasoline station.

THE KICHEN TRAP

If you, using the ABC chart approach, arrive at the conclusion that when you visit your kitchen you end up snacking on stuff you really don’t want, consider if the snack in question really is worth having in the first place. Maybe you should just throw it out.

If emptying the kitchen of seducing stuff isn’t an option, consider hanging a mirror on the kitchen wall. Mirrors have been shown to generate a certain amount of self-awareness which encourages people to make more healthy choices.

WHEN WE STOCKPILE PRODUCTS, WE EAT MORE.

Studies show that when we stockpile food, we eat more. Researchers stockpiled food in different quantities in different people’s homes, to ensure that it is not just people who eat more who chose to stockpile. In those houses where they stockpiled more, people ate more.

THE SEE FOOD DIET

Once we see food we are much more likely to eat it. Our frail willpower causes us to be on a see-food diet a lot of the time; once we see food, we will eat it. In one experiment simply putting candy in a clear dish rather than in a white dish induced the unknowing participants to visit the candy dish 71% more often. Likewise other studies have shown that packing food in transparent wrap will make people eat more than if it is packed in aluminium foil.

It isn’t just that we are suffering from emptying our willpower resources (what is called ego-depletion). There is also a physical reality; once we see food, we think of food. Once we think of food our pancreas is likely to secrete insulin, and the insulin in return lowers over blood sugar. Lower blood sugar in return makes us feel hungry.

THE 20 SECONDS RULE

Shawn Achor, the author of The Happiness Advantage, suggests adding an extra 20 seconds of effort to actions you wish to stop doing. For example, Achor removed the batteries from the remote control, because he felt he was watching too much television. This action meant that it now required a little extra effort to watch television which in effect stopped his autopilot.

It also allows the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain just behind your forehead, to move into action. The prefrontal cortex is where our willpower is seated, and it is often too slow to react before our limbic system has made us devour the chocolate cookie. Simply making actions more time consuming beefs up our willpower.

REFERENCES & RECOMMENDED READING

• Sentyrz, S. M., & Bushman, B. J. (1998). Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the thinnest one of all? Effects of self-awareness on consumption of fatty, reduced-fat, and fat-free products. Journal of Applied Psychology, 83, 944–949.
• Brian Wansink “Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think” 78–80
• Richard Wiseman “59 Seconds: Think a Little, Change a Lot” 106–110.
• Shawn Achor “The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work” 145–170.
• Jonah Lehrer “Blame it on the Brain”.

The ABC chart is, in psychology jargon, a tool for conducting a behaviour audit. ABC is in this case is an acronym for “Antecedent, Behaviour and Consequence”. The Antecedent refers to the activity which precedes the problem Behaviour. C of course refers to the Consequence. This functional behaviour assessment method is frequently used to analyse why toddlers misbehave in school. This is perfect because I want to utilize the method exactly in situations where I find my actions very toddler like. An example from my private world:

Antecedent

While driving home from work I realize that I drank too little water, and I am also hungry.

Behaviour

I quickly rationalize that I need water, and that an appropriate snack would be helpful to prepare my energy level just in time for my evening workout. I stop at a gasoline station, and buy an innocent bottle of water and a much less innocent snack which is both larger and of poorer quality than what I really wanted. As it happens, gasoline stations seem to specialize in such snacks: too big and too poor quality. Nonetheless, once the snack is there, in the car that is, I will devour it.

Consequence

• I am annoyed at myself for consuming calories with I didn’t really enjoy, and which have undesirable nutritional value.
• Being a recurring event I am quickly establishing paths in the brain which will make it a habit. Once a habit I cannot drive home without contemplating going by the gasoline station for a snack. Hence I will drain my resources of willpower.

A digression – Correlation or Causation

Before jumping into solution mode in the next entry, I have a word of caution. The ABC chart is used to bring attention to the antecedent. This focus may make us inclined to think of the antecedent as the course and confuse correlation with causation. We must pay attention if the antecedent really is relevant or not.

When researching this entry, I ran into several ABC charts used for analysing various children’s behaviour in school environments. Often the antecedent, I suspect, was merely the final straw by something which could have been caused by a sugar rich breakfast and/or lack of exercise or just the fact that there is something fundamentally flawed about the school environments in most places. Hence focusing on the antecedent action would be a misplaced effort.

Likewise, if you for example are annoyed by a scenario which seems to lead to eating fatty food in the evening, it may not be a specific antecedent but the simple fact that most people crave fat in the evening. The reason are the fluctuations of chemicals in our brains. While we can certainly affect these fluctuations, analysing the immediate antecedent may be superficial.

References & Recommended Reading

• Bruce Peltier “The Psychology of Executive Coaching” 93-96
• Roberta H. Anding “Teach12: Nutrition Made Clear” lecture 21

In the next entry I will discuss how to launch a pre-emptive strike to give our willpower a little umph.

I generally avoid temptations unless I can’t resist it

-Mae West

In one experiment participants were divided into 2 groups. The participants were told it was an experiment on taste perception and sensory memory. It wasn’t. Instead it was an experiment on what is called ego depletion; the idea that willpower is an exhaustible resource that can be used up.

The laboratory room was carefully set up before the participants arrived. Chocolate chip cookies were baked in the room in a small oven, and as a result, the laboratory was filled with the delicious aroma of fresh chocolate and baking. One group of participants was told they could only help themselves to radishes, and the second group was allowed to take chocolate chip cookies and chocolate candies.

Subsequently, all the participants plus a control group who had not taken part in the “taste perception” experiment were asked to solve an unsolvable puzzle. They were told the puzzle would be easy.

The participants who had been allowed to take chocolate cookies and the control group endured roughly twice as long, and made roughly twice as many attempts on solving the puzzle than the so-called ego depleted group.

willpower is a limited resource

In short, willpower is a limited resource, and in order to get the best out of it, we need to deploy it at the optimal time. One method of identifying these optimal times is to use the so-called ABC chart, and this is the method I will discuss in the next entry. Lastly, I will come with suggestions on how to give our willpower a little umph, deploying what I call pre-emptive strikes. Don’t worry, this does not entail violent actions.

REFERENCES & RECOMMENDED READING

• Richard Wiseman “59 Seconds: Think a Little, Change a Lot” 88-93
• Baumeister, R. F.; Bratslavsky, E.; Muraven, M.; Tice, D. M. (1998). “Ego Depletion: Is the Active Self a Limited Resource?“. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 74: 1252–1265
• W. Hofmann, W. Rauch, B. Gawronski (2007) “And deplete us not into temptation: Automatic attitudes, dietary restraint, and self-regulatory resources as determinants of eating behaviour” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 43: 497–504

If I had to guess your choice based on results from an experiment exactly like this, there is a 57% chance that you would pick the chocolate cake over the fruit salad. I myself would of course always choose the chocolate cake as long as it seemed to be acquainted with the actual ingredient of chocolate. Anything else would be rude since someone had gone through the trouble of making it.

Now this of course was never a memory experiment, neuroscientist and social psychologists are after all compulsive liars, but instead it was an experiment on self-control. In the same experiment another group of test persons were requested to remember only 2 digits. This group chose the cake over the fruit salad only 37% of the times.

The working memory and the part of the brain which controls emotional urges leverages the same part of the brain; the prefrontal cortex. So merely remembering a few digits can overload the bandwidth to an extent where it affect our choices. Likewise it has been shown that even a slight drop in blood sugar levels can inhibit self-control – something which is often all too evident for people who are dieting.

Our choices are greatly affected by what areas of the brain are distracted. So is it with something like television. While most television programs seem to go out of the way to not make us think, they still distract us.

Television is a weapon of mass distraction

-Larry Gelbart

In one experiment children who were made to watch TV (The Simpsons) while eating lunch, ate 228 calories more than when they were not watching TV. Other studies has proved that adults are no less foilable than kids in this regard. A different experiment showed that this can also be utilized to make us eat more carrots – it seems that we just eat more when the TV is on, pretty much no matter what is placed on the table. 

Of course it isn’t only TV which distracts us and twists our decision making. Experiments has shown that all sort of other distractions also impact our choices in eating, and in everything else for that matter. However, TV watching can potentially deliver several other blows to our diet choices. One of which is that TV watching has been shown to suppress the production of melatonin which again can affect sleep patterns. For more on the connection between sleep and diet choices, see Sleep sound, eat little!

Uti­liz­ing this knowl­edge to your advantage;

• If you made a really bad dinner (or just want to consume more carrots), turn on the telvision, and noone will notice – otherwise enjoy your food without distractions.

Ref­er­ences & rec­om­mended reading

Next week I will discuss how we can use a behavioural analysis to affect our choices

This is the same protein shake after different amount of blending time.  In the second picture it has been blended for an additional 3 minutes. Hence they each contain the exact same amount of calories. Even so, the protein shake in the second picture will make me feel more full and in all likelihood make me eat less in my next meal!

This is the lesson learned from numerous studies on food volume and its affect on our satiety. In an experiment similar to my demonstration above, students were given smoothies which contained the exact same ingredients but which were blended for shorter or longer times. Those blended the longest time caused the students to report they were more full and eat less on the subsequent lunch which followed 30 minutes later.

Disclaimer – the above is not a recommendation for drinking protein shakes. Protein shakes can make sense if you like them, AND exercise a lot, AND are too lazy to make a substitute meal of sufficient quality to support a rigid training regime.

The short wide glass vs. the thin high glass

Another potential misconception results from the shape of a glass. This is particularly true when it comes to height versus width. In an experiment where people were given a short wide glass and a high thin glass, they poured an average of 19% more into the wide glass. At only one glass per day of i.e. coke or juice, this translate into roughly 1 kilo of body fat a year. Just to make sure that this was not just because of incompetence, a similar test was repeated with seasoned bartenders. They were told to pour 1.5 ounce into the glasses . In the thin high glasses they almost managed to be precise. In the wide glasses they hit an average of 2.1 ounces or 37% above the target.

Interestingly, what we drink tends not to affect how much we eat! So the added calories are unlikely be countered by a reduced intake of calories from a subsequent or associated meal!

People don’t eat calories, they eat volume

-Brian Wansink

In a candid camera like experiment Wansink et al. used bottomless soup bowls connected to a concealed tube which continuously refilled the bowl as the unknowing test person ate. The test persons who had bottomless bowls consumed 73% more than their table mates who ate from ordinary soup bowls. In the subsequent questionnaire they reported the same level of “fullness” as those who had eaten from ordinary bowls.

Utilizing this knowledge to your advantage;

• Identify high volume low calorie food you enjoy and make it available
• Beware of large crockery
• Use high thin glasses unless you are drinking water – you can always take a second glass
• Remember it is almost like we have a second stomach for what we drink!

References & recommended reading

• Brian Wansink “Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think”
• “Bottomless Bowls: Why Visual Cues of Portion Size May Influence Intake,” Wansink, Brian, James E. Painter, and Jill North, Obesity Research

Next week I will discuss how distractions affect our choice of food

We believe we have all the free will in the world. We believe we overeat if the food is good or if we’re really hungry. In reality, those are two of the last things that determine how much we eat.

–Brian Wansink

The more there is, the more we’ll eat 

In one experiment moviegoers were given free popcorn either in a large-size bucket  or in a “medium-size bucket”. It was ensured that even the medium size bucket was too large for anyone to finish. To make matters worse the experimenter used old stale popcorn. It was so bad that a few of the moviegoers requested their money back – though they hadn’t paid for the popcorn.

Even so the people who had received the large buckets dipped roughly 21 more times into their bucket getting an average of an additional 173 calories or 53% more than those who had been handed out the medium size buckets.

When the moviegoers were asked if the size of the buckets had influenced how much they had ate, most disagreed that it had any effect on them. Some of the moviegoers had eaten just before going to the movie. They weren’t eating because they were hungry. They weren’t eating because the popcorn was delicious. They were eating because it was available, and the more it was available the more the ate. The distraction of the movie made their illusion of will power even more frail.

Big Scoops, big appetite

Yet, we don’t need the distraction of a movie to compromise our judgement. In another experiment researchers simply exchanged the scoop in a bowl of freely available M&M’s. They replaced a smaller scoop with a larger one. Suddenly people were taking a whopping 66% more M&M’s.

It doesn’t even help that people are trained to recognize the size and availability traps. Experiments show that even students and researchers who had received lectures on the subject still fall into the size trap – a larger bowl i.e. made them take more ice-cream than other who received a smaller bowl.

Utilizing this knowledge to your advantage;

• Ensure that healthy and delicious fruits and vegetables are readily available.
• When arranging dinner, serve the food which intake you want to decrease in the kitchen, and bring the food which intake you want to increase to the table in big bowls.
• Use smaller plates! – since 1960 the surface area of the average dinner plate in the US, has increased by 36%

And remember – Deprivation is not strategy for human beings! A diet you enjoy, and forget you are on, is!

References & recommended reading

• Jonah Lehrer “How we decide”
• Brian Wansink “Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think”
• “Bad Popcorn in Big Buckets: Portion Size Can Influence Intake as Much as Taste” Wansink, Brian and Junyong Kim, Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior
• If you see it, you’ll eat it
• Brian Wansink, Koert van Ittersum “Portion Size Me: Downsizing Our Consumption Norms”

Next week I will elaborate a bit as well as discussing how the size of the actual food affect us