The dining table should be more than just a place for eating

A study of Brian Wansink and myself as co-author was published recently. The study shows that the dining environment itself is associated with weight status. It was picked up by several newspapers, such as the Los Angeles Times ('Mealtime rituals might make a difference in obesity, researchers say') and the Daily Mail Online ('Telly tubbies: Eating dinner in front of the TV 'makes you fatter than sharing a meal with family at the table').

Read the Cornell University's Press Release:

'Beyond plate size and calorie and carbohydrate counts, the war against obesity may have a better front – the dinner table. Eating dinner with kin (and without the TV on) is linked to lower body mass, reports a Cornell behavioral economist in the journal Obesity.

Families that eat together frequently – and stay seated at the table until everyone’s finished – have children with lower weights and Body Mass Index (BMI). This is especially strong with boys. Strong, positive socialization skills that dinners foster possibly supplant the need to overeat, explain the researchers. Mothers and fathers who talk meaningfully with children about their day at the dinner table also have lower BMIs.

“The ritual of where one eats and how long one eats seems to be the largest driver,” said Brian Wansink, professor in Cornell’s Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management and director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab. He co-authored the study with Ellen Van Kleef, assistant professor at Wagening University, the Netherlands.

But families that eat dinner while watching television can turn chubby, as the researchers linked that to higher BMIs. “In fact, eating anywhere other than the kitchen or dining room was related to higher BMIs in both parents and in children,” said Wansink.

“By focusing on family dining rituals, this research departs from the more food-centric approaches. Dinner starts with meal preparation, and while being involved in meal preparation was unrelated to the BMI of young boys, it was positively correlated with the index of young girls,” said Wansink.

“Family meals and their rituals might be an underappreciated battleground to fight obesity.”

The study, “Dinner Rituals that Correlate with Child and Adult BMI,” was published online in Obesity, Oct. 1, and was funded by the Cornell Food and Brand Lab.'

Stealth Health - Guiding healthier eating in stores and schools: Presentation Brian Wansink at Wageningen University

Last week, Brian Wansink presented his latest nudging studies at Wageningen University. In one of the presented studies, consumer participants in a grocery store were nudged by changing their shopping cart. The nudge was not particularly high tech: Brian and his team put a line of duct tape across the width of the shopping cart and a sign 'put your fruits and vegetables here'. These changes to the shopping cart made consumers purchase more fruits and vegetables without affecting total sales. Have a look yourself.

Brian visited our Marketing and Consumer Behaviour group, because Evelien van de Veer defended her thesis 'Relying on satiety cues in food consumption: studies on the role of social context, appearance focus, and mindfulness'. Brian was opponent in her thesis committee. Read a interesting summary in Dutch of Evelien's thesis in the Resource.

Debunking fast food: How expectations shape our eating experiences

When I was at the Food and Brand lab at Cornell University, the crew of Penn and Teller (well-known US TV show) filmed a small-scale consumer experiment. They invited a food designer known for doing 'extreme makeovers' with fast food (see his blog 'Fancy Fast Food'). This designer changed the fast food bought at places like KFC, McDonalds and Dunkin' Donuts into beautifully looking restaurant dishes.

Then the experiment started. Visitors of the lab were tricked into believing they were eating fancy restaurant food. As a result, the food was highly liked. 'It is something my grandma would make', one guy told. Then a second experiment started. Here, one group was correctly told that the salad they were served came from the fast food chain Taco Bells. Not surprisingly, the response was accordingly: 'Big, greasy and maybe not so healthy'. However, when exactly the same salad was presented as coming from the 'California Garden Cafe', people were much more enthusiastic ('It's good... it's light').

We like to believe that we are experts in recognizing excellent cooking. In reality, how we experience food is not only determined by the characteristics of the food itself, but at least as much by our expectations, desires and beliefs. If we think that a food or drink is going to taste good, we look for positive qualities that confirm that belief and justify our choice. This is related to the health halo effect, which refers to consumers' tendency to think that when a food possesses one desirable feature ('freshly made'), the food is automatically assumed to have more desirable features ('it tastes light'). A risky bias, which may lead to underestimating how many calories we actually eat.

Watch this video, it is really fun. By the way, I am not in the video, I was washing the dishes...

Just a bite or the full portion size? Dramatically smaller snack portion sizes satisfy hunger and cravings

A key reason we are getting overweight is because we eat too large portion sizes of food. But is this overeating giving us more satisfaction? Could eating smaller portions be similarly effective in decreasing food cravings or feelings of hunger as larger portions? That was the key question in the study that I conducted with Mitsuru Shimizu and Brian Wansink while visiting the Food and Brand lab. The paper is now published in Food Quality and Preference (see also full-text paper).



We presented 104 participants with either a small portion of three commonly craved snacks - chocolate, potato chips and apple pie - or substantial larger portions of the same snacks. For example, the small portion of chocolate was 10 grams, while the large portion was 100 grams. Feelings of hunger and craving were assessed just before participants started with the taste test, immediately after the taste test and about 15 minutes later. Secretly, we also measured how much participants ate.

Results show that although providing larger food portions increased snack calorie intake by 77% (103 calories), after 15 minutes, they do not reduce hunger or cravings any more than smaller portions. In other words, after 15 minutes, when all food was out of sight, everyone was equally happy.

A typical snack in the US contains about 264 calories (see Piernas and Popkin, 2010). This amount closely resembles the total calories consumed in the large portion size condition in our study (about 237 calories). Nevertheless, although participants in the small portion size condition ate considerably less (about 134 calories, which is about 51% of what people typically snack), they were equally tempted by the snacks. This shows that whereas large portions tend to increase food intake, smaller portions may make you equally satisfied. 

Going for the large portion size of their favourite food

How to stop eating when you are craving a food? One way is to make sure that there is less food in front of you in the first place. That is not simple. Large food portions are common in supermarkets, restaurants and even at home. Portion sizes of many foods have increased during the last decades and we are getting used to it. For example, snack foods and beverages are offered in increasingly large packages. Although many consumers find 'value for money' important, it would be better to stop the emphasis of getting more food for you money. Smaller portion sizes can help you limit the amount of food you eat.

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Do increased serving bowl sizes influence how much we eat?

It is often stated that that the increasing size of food portions is a strong factor contributing to the incidence of overweight and obesity. Numerous studies have shown it again and again: larger portion sizes, serving devices and packages lead people to eat more, often without them realizing it. In particular, individual serving devices such as plates, spoons and bowl have been shown to influence food intake. However, what has not been shown is whether the most central focus of the dinner table, the main serving bowl, has a similar magnifying effect. When one is eating at home and eating out in buffet restaurants, food is often available in serving bowls from which individual portions are distributed.

This month, the paper 'Serving bowl biases the amount of food served' I wrote together with Mitsuru Shimizu and Brian Wansink came out in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior. This paper reports our study in which we wanted to determine how serving bowls filled with food for many persons influence serving behaviour and consumption. We expected that the larger the size of a multiple-serving bowl, the more people will serve and consume. In the study, 68 participants were randomly assigned to a group serving pasta from a large-sized bowl (almost 7 litre capacity) or a medium-sized bowl (almost 4 litre capacity). When given a large bowl, diners served 77% more pasta compared with the diners serving from the medium-sized bowl. They ate more, even though the food was not rated tastier or otherwise notable different.


Bowl size matters, so fill your largest bowl with salad



We wondered about the reasons for our findings. It could be that more 'social' reasons inhibit an individual from taking too much food from a smaller common bowl. Perhaps people use the size of serving bowl filled with food for multiple persons as an indication of how much they can best serve themselves. It could even seem greedy to take more food from a smaller bowl.

In any case, small increases in food intake may lead to substantial additional caloric intake over a longer time period and even weight gain. Just like larger package sizes, large serving devices seem to suggest to people that large portions are appropriate to consume.

These findings again highlight the role that external cues play in food consumption and show the importance of considering serving bowl size in nutrition education. Maybe our findings can be used to turn bad habits around; just put your salad in bigger bowls.

Our Food & Brand lab study in the USA Today!

Exciting day today! This morning I ran to the hotel lobby to get a copy of the USA Today. And why? Because our study (the one that I did with Brian Wansink and Mitsuru Shimizu at the Food and Brand lab last year) can be found at the Life section of this important newspaper.

I love the headline: 'Watch a fitness commercial and you just might eat less'. And this is what Nanci Hellmich, the journalist of the USA Today wrote:

'If you're struggling to eat less and keep your appetite under control, here's a tip: Try watching someone else exercising. People consumed less at meals after watching exercise-related commercials than they did after viewing other types of ads, a new study says. Researchers at the Cornell Food and Brand Lab in Ithaca, N.Y., recruited 125 participants and had half watch TV exercise-related ads for running shoes and fitness centers. The other half watched ads for things such as car insurance and washing machines. Then all participants were offered a buffet lunch. Findings:

• Those who saw the fitness messages ate 22% fewer calories at lunch than the others.
• Participants who viewed the exercise commercials reported feeling more active, athletic and in better shape than those in the other group.
• Those who watched the exercise messages thought the meal was healthier and liked it better than those watching the other ads.

The exercise commercials may have caused people to be more health- and body-conscious, says the study's lead author, Ellen van Kleef. She presented the results this weekend at the annual meeting of the Obesity Society in San Diego. The fitness messages reminded people of how much work it is to burn off calories, says Brian Wansink, director of the Cornell lab. "They realized that half-cup of pudding is going to mean a mile and half on the treadmill."'

One year at the Food and Brand Lab: participating in discovering the why of people's eating habits

From September 2009 till August 2010 I worked at the Food and Brand lab at Cornell University in New York. I had such a good time there! It was wonderful to be part of this action-oriented and creative group of researchers, led by Dr. Brian Wansink.

The Food and Brand lab at Cornell University is best known for the famous studies of Brian on Mindless Eating. Mindless eating refers to the research finding that people make twenty times more food decisions that they are aware of. His studies have shown that people are easily influenced by subtle cues in their environment, including food packaging, signs, names, light, color, shapes and scents, the food stocked in your kitchen cabinet and so on. Still, if you ask people, they are usually unaware of these influences on what and how much they eat.

The lab is not large, but much is possible. For example, it can be transformed into a dining room where you can secretly watch people from behind two way mirrors. The great thing is that there is always someone working on a study, so lots of food is present. Working at the Food and Brand Lab was a year full of experiments, fun ideas and food. Now I am back at the Marketing and Consumer Behaviour Group of Wageningen University in the Netherlands, continuing my research in this fascinating field.