Mindless Eating and Obesity - Growing Trends In Society Today

A recent experiment showed that outside influences often control how much a person eats. This was proven when people were given a bowlful of soup and were told to eat until they were satisfied. Little did the participants know, these were actually self-filling bowls. People kept on eating and eating because their bowls didn’t seem to be emptying… whether or not their stomachs were actually full had little bearing on how much they ate.

This is just one example of how outside influences affect our eating habits. With obesity being a growing problem in society today, it’s very interesting to examine what is influencing this trend.

Mindless Eating by author, Brian Wansink, examines this topic in great depth. It covers whether or not how much we eat is determined by the size of our plate, by certain colours or by whether or not we’re watching movies while we’re eating. The book also covers whether we hate certain foods because our parents did, and what our comfort foods really say about us.