A Big Fat Crisis by Deborah Cohen Read Free Book Online Page B

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    An alternative explanation is that the participants may have been inhibited about opening the big bag because there was only one available and they were “guests” in a strange setting, whereas they were less inhibited about opening one of five bags available.
    It may work the same at home. If you have only one bag of chips, you might save it for a special occasion; but if you have several small bags, you might be more likely to have one every day.
    Alternatives to Dieting
    If we want to control what and how much we eat, applying insights on human behavior from psychology and behavioral economics could potentially be more helpful than trying to diet. Instead of focusing on avoiding food, we might be more successful by paying attention to the food environment. Here’s what I suggest:
    1. Look at the current food environment and purveyors of processed foods with suspicion . One of the strongest human drives is the desire to be treated fairly and not to be duped or taken advantage of. We don’t like to think we are getting a raw deal. So try to remember that food branding, celebrity endorsements, and elegant packaging are simply tricks to get you to buy a product. The value of the product remains unchanged regardless of what is on the wrapper. If we start viewing the worst offenders in the food and beverage industrieswith disdain, their efforts will fail to persuade us to buy their products. We will have inoculated ourselves against companies that sell us junk foods and that advertise and market those foods relentlessly. The best thing about this approach is that we won’t have to use up any of our willpower or limited cognitive capacity to reject these unhealthy foods—we will say no automatically, as we do when faced with anything suspicious.
    2. Take a stand on food . Most people, including me, love to eat sweet foods and crunchy, salty snacks. But it’s possible to learn to dislike them on principle, which will make resisting them a lot easier. The trick is seeing beyond the food and appreciating how the process of creating, processing, packaging, and marketing it creates a spiral of problems for many people and for the planet.
    By way of example, I have learned to dislike sugar-sweetened beverages. As a youth, my favorite beverage was a root beer float, but now I won’t drink any soda except soda water. Basically, I have conditioned myself to associate sodas with poor health and social harms like poverty and even global warming. (Yes, you can help reduce global warming by consuming less!) Sodas and other bottled drinks as well as processed foods waste a lot of materials, create a lot of trash, and generally waste the money of people who are sucked into the illusion that the drink is more than the drink or the snack is more than the snack. By focusing on the bad qualities of foods that should be avoided—the horrible chemicals and preservatives in them, the negative consequences of consuming them—it is possible to learn to dislike them. Once you dislike something, it is much, much easier to refuse.
    3. Cut your food budget . Instead of going on a diet, try saving money. If you buy less, you will usually end up eating less. If you are not losing weight doing what you are doing now, you are probably buying (and eating) too much food. Think of weight loss as money in the bank. The first thing to save on is snacking. Just don’t eat between meals. (Or if you must, limit yourself to a fruit or vegetable that costs less than fifty cents.) Whatever you would have ordinarily spent on a snack, whether it is an energy bar or a cappuccino, take that money and put it in aspecial wallet. Don’t spend it on any other food. If you have already cut out snacks but are still having trouble losing weight, then you need to eat smaller meals. Buy less bread. Skip the pasta. Save money on the amount of meat or cheese you buy. Any person who wants to lose weight but is spending more on food as a result is missing a key concept