Escaping the Mindless Eating Trap
AT talked to Brian Wansink, director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab at Cornell University and author of Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think.
AT: What is mindless eating?
Brian Wansink: People make between 250 to 300 decisions about food every day. Most people don’t realize they’re making decisions about whether they’re going to have two-thirds of a bowl of cereal or a full bowl, or whether they’re going to have a second bowl. They don’t count it as a decision every time they see a cookie platter and say “No, no, no!”
These mindless choices we make really add up over the day. They [are] tremendously influenced by our environment, by what the person next to us is doing or by the sight of a bowl or candy dish, or by the colors in a buffet. And because we’re not aware of making this many decisions, we get trapped, calorie by calorie.
AT: So how do we become more aware of mindless eating?
Wansink: Actually, the last thing you want to do is become more aware of it. We’ve got way too many things to think about than to say, “MUST NOT EAT CANDY ON DESK!” Instead, you want to change your environment. It’s a lot easier to “mindlessly” move your candy dish, for instance, than to have to think about it all the time.
AT: Any other tips?
Wansink: There are five diet danger zones where people are most likely to mess up: meal stuffing, snack grazing, desktop and dashboard dining, party bingeing and restaurant indulging.
Find one or two that are your downfall. Then find three small changes to make every day for a month – three small 100 calorie changes that relate to your diet danger zone. If your problem is meal stuffing, don’t serve food family style. Leave it on the counter instead of putting it on the table. We’ve found that people eat 30 percent less when they do that. If your problem is dashboard dining [eating in the car], pull over and stop when you eat. Again, it’s all about changing your environment.
