We eat with our eyes first
It doesn’t matter if you are a marketing master, a mom, Martha Stewart or Mario Batali, if you are in the “biz” of enticing people to eat you never forget this simple rule. Visual appeal increases both food craving and perceived deliciousness. But visual appearance also plays a central role in determining how much we consume during snacks or meals and how satisfied we feel after eating. Brian Wansink Ph.D, executive director of the USDA’s Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion (CNPP) and author of the bestselling book Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think, has conducted numerous studies on eating behavior. Not only did he find that we eat 92% of the food we serve ourselves, we also perform abysmally when it comes to estimating how much we actually eat. Our eyes determine the portion from the size of the container or dish. These visual cues are so powerful that even trained dietitians made significant errors in estimating how much they actually consumed.
Reset to Factory Settings
One of the most common concerns of new breast feeding mothers is how can they tell if the baby is getting enough food. I heard this question over and over again when I was practicing medicine and as a lactation consultant. Although my answer was “you don’t need to know - the baby knows”. For the most part consistent presence of wet diapers is evidence of both adequate fluid AND food intake. This would offer some temporary reassurance but it was obvious that some moms were a little more anxious. Clearly they needed some concrete reassurance. It think what they really wanted from me was some sort of pill that would either render their breast transparent or give them x-ray vision. Over the course of a human lifetime we the amount of fat stored on our bodies fluctuates very little. It’s mind boggling when you consider that we must manage about 70 million calories over the span of our existence and for millions of years we were able maintain a relatively stable weight over our entire adulthood. This mechanism is very precise - there is usually less than ONE HALF of one percent fluctuation from year to year. If this control mechanism was off by as little as one percent the individual would fatally waste away or become massively obese. For a newborn infant these internal cues of hunger and satiety are the only governors of intake. They don’t see or understand well enough to use the ounces on the bottle as guidance. The visual cues used by adults are remarkably strong and consistent. In another experiment, Wansink rigged up something that actually recaptures the circumstances of the nursing infant, it was called “the bottomless soup bowl”. In this experiment half of the diners were served soup from bowls t specially engineered to keep refilling. The remaining diners had normal bowls. The participants with bottomless bowls consumed 73% more soup, yet they did not believe they consumed more than their companions nor was their any difference in their internal perception of “fullness” or satiety. This was true across the board for both normal and overweight or obese individuals. We learn to count calories with our eyes not our stomachs and a portion universally becomes related to the size of the container or the serving. Historically, starvation has posed a much greater threat to survival than obesity; therefore, our eyes tend to deceive us in the direction of overconsumption. The good news is that your inborn calorie counter is likely still very functional. You can go back to default setting of listening to internal cues for hunger and satiety. In fact this is what is typically reported in “slimmer” countries such as France and Japan. It is also possible to “update our software” and employ some visual trickery such as smaller plates to use our visual cues to help us rather than harm us. So channel your inner baby and remember “breastfed is best fed”.
