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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.
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.
So obesity in America is a snowball effect and cannot be stopped.
Look at photographs from the sixties and seventies of Americans or even earlier. Normal people.
From the eighties onward they've become walking Bibendums. It's tragic if you think about it. An entire people incapable of eating healthy food. Children are obese, parents are obese. It's clear something went wrong between the seventies and the eighties. What ?
If the reverse is true, which seems fairly likely, there'll be an equilibrium at some point. If that point is overweight for both persons, it'd be interesting to which trend continued (assuming fat people eat less around slimmer people). I guess they'll publish more papers exploring the other combinations of people in the future.
Look at photographs from the sixties and seventies of Americans or even earlier. Normal people. From the eighties onward they've become walking Bibendums. It's tragic if you think about it. An entire people incapable of eating healthy food. Children are obese, parents are obese. It's clear something went wrong between the seventies and the eighties. What ?
The share of spending on food has fallen from %30 of the household budget in the 50's to less than %13. Simply put until quite recently overeating was something only the rich could comfortably afford.