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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 ?
The "low-fat" craze that caused everyone to start eating a lot more sugar and spiking their insulin constantly.
The snowball has reached europe, and it hit the U.K.
first, but we europeans are starting to catch up.
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.
The fat woman was actually an actress wearing a fat suit.
Why ? I can't imagine it would be too hard to find a genuinely fat person to take the job.
No, but a bit harder for her to do the control as 'normal sized'... I assume the study wanted the same person in both tests to eliminate as many other variables as possible.
Mirror Neurons.
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.
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.
As opposed to where the OP wants the blame placed.
So, do we put them in special sections with visual barriers, or just make them eat outside where we can't see them? Will we see fat people huddled around doorways in winter, banished outside while they eat their Snickers?
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
This isn't "blaming" anyone. At no point was any "blame" made. At no point in the study did they ask the guys "Why did you eat so much pasta?" and at no point did anyone say "The fat lady made me do it."
This is nothing more than observed behaviour. Most of this type of behaviour is subconscious, so in many ways you probably have had a fat person grab your hand and shovel food down your throat.
This may also explain why the only person looking to lay blame on anyone appears to be you.
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.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Studies involving a small (82), biased (coeds) number of college students who were primed (required to watch) are not science. "The conclusion was simple". As is anyone believing said conclusion.
Yet another case of a prior conclusion being reached by a fabricated "study". Groundwork for controlling people's diets.
Doritos happened.
In all seriousness, when I was a kid growing up in the '70s and '80s, Doritos were like the most awesome thing ever, and I loved those things. Doritos, Oreos, Pringles and Fritos were my favorite pleasures on earth.
Two things have changed since then. First, I bet if I could go back in time and look at that "big" bag of Doritos I used to savor for a month or something, it was probably only a little bigger than a modern "big grab" bag, if not the same size. Second, I only got to eat any of the above foods once in a rare while, because they were "too expensive" to keep on hand. My staple diet growing up was home cooking from either my aunt or my mother.
We all need more home cooking, and less junk. Junk has its place, but too many of us make a staple diet of it, and I'm pretty close to being as bad for this as you can get. Some weeks I literally live on Doritos and Dr. Pepper and never have a real meal at all. Imagine, if you will, how it could possibly have come to pass that I am overweight, and about to turn obese. It helps nothing that I earn money by putting my ass in a seat and doing very little physical activity.
Unless you're a porn star or an athlete, there's just no money in physical activity.
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.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.... no matter how hard you try to make Aspartame look more innocent than bunny rabbits and fluffy kittens It still creeps me out that Donald Rumsfeld had a hand in getting it FDA approved and bringing it to market.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Your logic is flawed. Alpha animals do not allow lesser animals to feed before they do.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
I have lost 75 lbs by exercise and avoiding "diet" food.
Real butter and fatty food fills you up faster and stays longer. Diet foods keep you hungry and eating more.
Most people will start to diet when they notice that they are getting a little fat. But the diet with diet food makes them more hungry and they overeat and loose will power this you get fatter.
There is a good trend toward Diet Food and obesity.
McDonalds Coca-Cola have been around for generations. However diet foods started in the 80s
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Even if "everyone knows" or "it's common knowledge", we still have to dot every "i" and cross every "t". After all, "everyone knew" that heavier objects fell faster than lighter objects. And that "bleeding someone" was good for them. And that "trains going faster than a horse could run would suck the oxygen out of their passenger's lungs." And "We can see canals, water canals, and plants growing on Mars with our telescopes."
Portion control is a huge problem. In the original submission, I had added "BTW, who says pasta is unhealthy? We're omnivores, not rabbits." Pasta is a more energy-dense source of calories - but people have been conditioned to eat until they're "full", not until they're "not hungry any more." Which is why I wrote "a waste is a terrible thing to mind." There are so many opportunities to sabotage yourself, more so when there are others around doing the same. We're social animals, and we tend not to think with our heads all that much before doing something (just look at divorce stats if you doubt it :-)
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Your post is an amalgamation of unfalsifiable nonsense. Humans aren't dogs; we didn't typically immediately eat everything we killed. They took it back to the cave/shelter/whatever and (once we had fire) cooked it and shared it with the non-hunters. Yeah the tribal leader(s) probably got to eat more or better parts of the animal, but, unlike with dogs, robbing him of this by eating it first would probably result in some long-term consequences. And for a large part of our history -- maybe most of it -- we weren't even primarily hunters at all. Look at the modern diet of chimpanzees. Your speculation also does not account for eating less salad -- why not simply eat more of everything? And as far as eating quicker, that's not even in the summary (and probably not the article either, but I don't care enough to check). You seem to have just pulled that out of an orifice not used for eating.
My speculation is It's probably more a case of mirroring. People mirror those around them (and you can speculate on why exactly this is the case as well if you want), and mirroring a fat person means -- at least in someone's mind -- eating less healthy and more calorie-dense food. But that's just unfalsifiable speculation on my part. All we know for sure is that people do it. And that's thanks to this study.
Also? Not going to a university because you don't like one study by one professor in one department is just too stupid for further comment.
vi ~/.emacs # I'm probably going to Hell for this.
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.
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).