environment influences: when are you done eating dinner?

For those looking to infuse a bit of scientific evidence into our study of human eating behavior, a free online Yale course called The Psychology, Biology, and Politics of Food provides a lot of excellent insight. This lecture, which addresses the morphing of the modern diet, demonstrates just how easily our minds are manipulated. The lecturer describes a study in which he surveyed matched samples of Parisians and Chicagoans, and asked them how they know when they're done eating dinner. Parisians overwhelmingly responded that they finish eating when they're no longer hungry. The second-most common response was that they finish when the food no longer tastes good. Chicagoans have apparently overlooked these self-evident answers. The three most common responses among the latter cohort were: (1) I'm finished when the plate is empty, (2) I'm finished when others around me are done, and (3) I'm finished when the tv show I'm watching is over. I suspect that authors like Kingsolver would explain that in the absence of a deeply-rooted food culture, American eaters allow environmental factors to drown out their body's innate knowledge. As a result, we're a culture full of people who don't know when we ought to stop eating.

In another amusing study, the lecturer rigged a never-ending, self-refilling soup bowl by drilling a hole in the bottom of a bowl and connecting it to a thin pipe that led to a hidden pressurized vat of soup - the contraption made it so that you could eat soup for hours and the level would never decrease. (Here's a video of how he set it up.) Out of 160 participants who ate soup from the bowl for 15 minutes, only 2 discovered that it was a never-ending bowl! And, even more tellingly, it affected perceptions of satiety. Even when people had eaten way more soup than the bowl could possibly hold, they still said that they were fairly hungry - how could they be full, they still have so much soup in front of them?

I've found this particular lecture incredibly helpful, in that it really explains a lot of my own eating habits. I definitely eat like a Chicagoan - I generally don't stop eating until my plate is empty, and/or the folks at my table are done eating as well. The bright side of this insight is that we can make minor environmental changes in order to facilitate mindful eating. So if I'm in an all-you-can-eat dining hall setting, and I know I'm not particularly hungry, I can avoid overeating by taking a smaller plate or bowl, rather than a full-sized plate. It's unrealistic to expect oneself to show perfect and total control - especially in such a crazy food environment. But little changes can go a long way!