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Diners Tend To Eat More If Their Companions Are Overweight

BarbaraHudson writes: A University of Illinois study (abstract) that shows that people tend to eat more in the presence of an overweight person. From the article: "The test involved a sample of 82 college coeds who were observed helping themselves to a simple pasta and salad meal. Each of the coeds were themselves of normal weight. The students first required to watch what they believed was a fat woman serving herself some of the food. The fat woman was actually an actress wearing a fat suit.

After observing the "corpulent" woman serve herself, the students were allowed to come forward and serve themselves pasta and salad. On average, the coeds each served themselves more pasta than the "fat" woman had selected while taking less salad than she did. When the same study was performed with the actress appearing sans the fat suit, researchers observed that students ended up eating more salad than pasta. The conclusion was simple: people may consume more unhealthy food and eat less healthy food when in the presence of an overweight person." As anyone on a diet will tell you, a waist is a terrible thing to mind. Weight control is a lot more complex than the article makes it seem, though some will welcome the opportunity to blame someone else.

7 of 126 comments (clear)

  1. Re: The cure for obesity! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

    And has god knows what chemicals that cause cancer and god knows what else and also screw with your metabolism, nullifying any advantage diet soda has.

    Skip the soda bro, diet or not.

  2. Re:The cure for obesity! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    > One can of Diet Coke saves 139 kcal compared to a regular Coke. Not a ton, but still worth saving.

    That's not taking into account the after-effects of drinking saccarine or aspartame. Over time, you save nothing by going diet soda, you gain weight instead!

    2010 Yale Study: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2892765/

    2011 Purdue Study: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21424985

    IMHO: Much better would be drinking regular water or iced tea instead of regular coke.

  3. Sounds to me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

    That they "may" have wasted time on a study that proves nothing.

  4. Re: The cure for obesity! by itzly · · Score: 5, Informative

    Aspartame is one of the few substances that has been analysed to death, and we know it is quickly metabolised into 3 parts that are also found in many other sources of food that we wouldn't think twice of consuming. We don't know nearly as much about herbal teas, for instance.

  5. Re:The cure for obesity! by itzly · · Score: 4, Informative

    Your first study doesn't provide a causal link. It may very well be that people who are already fat are switching to diet drinks in an effort to cut back on calories, or because they've developed type 2 diabetes. The 2nd study shows a weak causal link, but it's got a couple of problems: first of all, it's done on rats, not humans, and also it's done with sweetened yoghurt rather than diet drinks.

  6. Re:That's odd. by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's got nothing to do with willpower. The point of the study is that people who otherwise eat normally and maintain a healthy weight unconsciously eat more when observing fat people eat first. Willpower is not an issue, they are not even aware of what is happening.

    This is important. Adverts could use fat people to sell more of their product. Societies that have a lot of obese people make it harder for everyone to stay at a healthy weight, regardless of willpower.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  7. Re:America = snowball by master_kaos · · Score: 3, Informative

    I just started a keto diet a month ago eating nothing but butter, steak, eggs, cheese, bacon, chicken, and green beans.. I am already down 20lbs (fair enough most of it water weight), and 2 belt notches tighter.

    Yes I am morbidly obese, i have tried things in the past but my stomach was a bottomless pit. It was actually here on slashdot where I first heard about keto. I did more research, and this is the first time I have tried a diet where I am actually not fucking starving all the time. Tried pure calorie counting in the past but always was hungry.
    Now after a normal sized meal of steak with a slab of butter on it, and steam greened beans with another slab of butter on that, it fills me up.
    It is awesome that I can now eat awesome good foods, that are actually healthy (although not perceived healthy in normal society because OMG FAT AND CHOLESTEROL) 70% of my calories come from fat, 25% from protein, 5% from carbs (and most of carbs from natural occurring in vegetables).