Seduced By Snacks - Diary of an Oreo addict
My name is Lady Marmalade and I'm an addict. An Oreo addict to be precise. Or anything remotely chocolate to be less precise.
Overindulgence is a big, scary issue. Not just because it causes you to look big and scary, but also because manufacturers bargain on you stuffing your face and then telling yourself that you “only had a little taste”.
A lot of time and effort go into determining WHY Americans can’t stop eating. Hell, I spend a lot of MY time wondering why I can’t stop feeding my face. It’s not enough to have one or two Oreos to quiet the craving for crunchy, chocolaty goodness. No. I have to start working at that packed from the one side, munching faster and faster (in case someone else comes and also wants some) and only stop once there’s only about three left. Then I feel guilty and put it back in the cupboard, in case someone else wanted some (good girl, at least I didn’t eat them all!) Only to be back in the cupboard guiltily eating the remaining 3 a couple of hours later, feeling like a fat failure, but unable to stop myself.
According to Prof. Brian Wansink, 65 percent of Americans who are overweight or obese got that way, in part, because they didn’t realize how much they were eating.
The bigger the plate, the larger the spoon, the deeper the bag, the more we eat. But sometimes we decide how much to eat based on how much the person next to us is eating, sometimes moderating our intake by more than 20 percent up or down to match our dining companion.
One of his examples of our mindless approach to eating involved an experiment with tubs of five-day-old popcorn. Moviegoers in a Chicago suburb were given free stale popcorn, some in medium-size buckets, some in large buckets. What was left in the buckets was weighed at the end of the movie. The people with larger buckets ate 53 percent more than people with smaller buckets. And people didn’t eat the popcorn because they liked it, he said. They were driven by hidden persuaders: the distraction of the movie, the sound of other people eating popcorn and the Pavlovian popcorn trigger that is activated when we step into a movie theater.
Interesting, yes? Read more
So has this article led to a revolutionary cure for my Oreo overindulgence? Not even close.
But it’s quite reassuring to know I’m not the only one…
Overindulgence is a big, scary issue. Not just because it causes you to look big and scary, but also because manufacturers bargain on you stuffing your face and then telling yourself that you “only had a little taste”.
A lot of time and effort go into determining WHY Americans can’t stop eating. Hell, I spend a lot of MY time wondering why I can’t stop feeding my face. It’s not enough to have one or two Oreos to quiet the craving for crunchy, chocolaty goodness. No. I have to start working at that packed from the one side, munching faster and faster (in case someone else comes and also wants some) and only stop once there’s only about three left. Then I feel guilty and put it back in the cupboard, in case someone else wanted some (good girl, at least I didn’t eat them all!) Only to be back in the cupboard guiltily eating the remaining 3 a couple of hours later, feeling like a fat failure, but unable to stop myself.
According to Prof. Brian Wansink, 65 percent of Americans who are overweight or obese got that way, in part, because they didn’t realize how much they were eating.
The bigger the plate, the larger the spoon, the deeper the bag, the more we eat. But sometimes we decide how much to eat based on how much the person next to us is eating, sometimes moderating our intake by more than 20 percent up or down to match our dining companion.
One of his examples of our mindless approach to eating involved an experiment with tubs of five-day-old popcorn. Moviegoers in a Chicago suburb were given free stale popcorn, some in medium-size buckets, some in large buckets. What was left in the buckets was weighed at the end of the movie. The people with larger buckets ate 53 percent more than people with smaller buckets. And people didn’t eat the popcorn because they liked it, he said. They were driven by hidden persuaders: the distraction of the movie, the sound of other people eating popcorn and the Pavlovian popcorn trigger that is activated when we step into a movie theater.
Interesting, yes? Read more
So has this article led to a revolutionary cure for my Oreo overindulgence? Not even close.
But it’s quite reassuring to know I’m not the only one…
posted by Lady_Marmalade at 3:43 AM
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