OBESITY

obesity

Week 5 Assignment: Mindful Eating

Assignment Due Date and Time

· This assignment is due Sunday of Week 5 at 11:59 p.m. ET.

Purpose

The purpose of this assignment is to determine the factors that affect mindful eating.

Directions

Part 1:

In order to complete this assignment you will need to:

·

Read the Brian Wansink article “Under the Influence.”

· Read the Susan Albers article “The 5 S’s of Mindful Eating.”

· Review video on how to eat mindfully.

· Complete a Mindful Eating Exercise.

Part 2:

Answer the following questions:

1. What does mindful eating mean to you? Write a detailed definition of what it means to you to eat mindfully.

2. Discuss what types of foods that you do AND do not eat mindfully. What makes the difference?

3. Discuss the locations/environment in which you do AND do not eat mindfully. What makes the difference?

4. Which of the “5 S’s” do you engage in? Which ones would you like to try in order to eat more mindfully? Set specific goals for implementing these eating habits.

5. How did you feel while you tried the Mindful Eating Exercise? Discuss anything you noticed while completing it.

Submission Instructions

Submit your answers in the assignment submission area located in the weekly content area. All documents must be in either , x. or PDF formats in order to be graded.

Grading Criteria

This assignment is worth 25 points. Refer to the course’s assignment rubric to review grading expectations.

College of Online Education ILS2370

Johnson & Wales University

HOW EXTER AL CUES
MAKE US OVEREAT

What made you eat more of that ice cream than
you intended? Why do you always eat too much when

you go out for Chinese?

If you’re like most people, external cues influence how much
you eat, which foods you eat, how fast you eat, whether you

enjoy what you eat, and more.

Brian Wansink of Cornell University has spent a career unearthing
those cues. The trick isn’t just to uncover them, he says, but to

change them.

“Don’t say, ‘Now that I know it, it won’t
happen,”‘ cautions Wansink. “It will

happen.”

His solution? “It’s easier
to change your envi­

ronment than it is to
change your mind.”

Continued on
page 3 .

CSPI • 1971 -2011

EXTERNA L CUES

Q: Why do people overeat?
A: We should be pretty well calibrated to
know how much to eat to fill us up. We eat
three times a day every day of our lives.

Yet when we asked people, “When was
the last time you ate to the point of re­
gretting it?” almost everyone could think
of a time. Then we asked, “Why did you
eat so much?”

What we found is that roughly 12
percent sa id, “I overate because of some­
thing emotional,” or “I had a terrible
day,” or “I was feeling down,” or “I was
bored.” About 51 percent said they over­
ate because they were really hungry, and
37 percent said they overate because the
food was spectacular.

So we asked ourselves what happens
if the person is not hungry and the food
is terrible . That led to our stale popcorn
study.

Q: What did you test?
A: We gave people popcorn that was
either fresh or five days old . The stale
popcorn had been kept in a humidity­
controlled entomology lab. On a scale of

Brian Wansink
1 to 10, people rated the taste a 3.

is t he John S.
It tasted like Styrofoam .

Dyso n Professor of

Marketing in t he Q: And you gave moviegoers
either medium or large bags? Applied Econom ics

and Management A : Yes. And we gave them to
people who had eaten dinnerDepartment at
within 20 minutes of arriving at

Cornell Uni versity
the theater. So we gave them bad

in Ithaca , New York, food when they weren’ t hungry,
where he directs the Food and Brand Lab. He and people ate 34 percent more
was t he executive director of t he U.S. Depart­ from the bigger bucket. If the pop­

corn was fresh , they ate 4

5

percentment of Agriculture ‘s Cente r fo r Nutriti on
more from the larger bags.

Policy and Promotion from 2007 t o 2009, an d
When people left, we said,

is the author of Mindless Eating-Why We Ea t “Gee, you ate 34 percent more. Do
More Than We Think (New York : Bantam – De ll). you think the size of the bucket
For more information, see mindlesseating.org had anything to do with it?” And
and smarterlunchrooms .org. Wans ink spoke to a person they said, “No, how

could it?” to NAH’s Bonnie Li ebm an by phone.

Q: Are big servings the only
Influence on how much we eat?

A: No . Very simple things have a tremen­
dous influence not just on how much but
on how frequently we eat.

We studied secretaries who had won an
award for being great that year. We said,
“Congratulations . We’re going to give you
all the candy you can eat for a month!”

So we put candies either on their desks
or six feet from their desks in either a
clear or an opaque bowl, and every day
we refilled the candy dishes . And we
found that a typical secretary on a typi­
cal day would eat about nine Hershey’s
Kisses-which is about 225 calories-if
they were sitting on her desk.

But if we moved the candy dish six
feet away, they ate only four candies-or
about 125 fewer calories a day. Over the
course of a year, that would translate
into 11 to 12 pounds of extra weight they
would gain by having the candy on the
desk instead of six feet away.

We asked the secretaries if six feet was
just too far to walk, but they said, “No,
it ‘s just that the six feet gave me pause to
think, ‘Am I really that hungry? “‘ And
half the time, they said no.

Seeing the candies also made a differ­
ence. Secretaries who got a clear bowl
averaged two more candies per day than

those who got an opaque bowl.

Q: What else Influences people?
A : Names. A while back, someone who
operated a healthy cafeteria called to say,
” o one is eating in our cafeteria. What
should we do?” So we simply changed the
names of the foods they served.

Instead of Italian Pasta, we called it
Succulent Tuscany Pasta . Or instead of
Chocolate Cake, we called it Belgian
Black Forest Cake, even though the Black
Forest isn ‘t in Belgium. Once we added
a descriptive name, sales jumped by 27
percent. And it’s not just that food. People
rated the restaurant better and the chef
more competent.

If you believe that something’s going
to taste good, you look for the qualities
that confirm that. If you believe the milk
is spoiled, you drink the milk looking for
confirmation of that, too.

This has great implications for wine . If
you buy cheap wine, you think it’s going
to be terrible.

Q: Does a person’s reaction to one
food affect others?
A: Yes. We had a big wine and cheese
party for my grad students, and we found
that if the wine tasted terrible, people
rated the cheese served at stations with
that wine as terrible also.

We wondered if the first thing people
try has a poisoning-or halo-effect
on everything the person tries . We had
this restaurant on the University of Il­
linois campus called the Spice Box. Every
Thursday people would come in and eat a
prix (ixe dinner. They thought they were
trying new recipes, but we were actually
doing studies on them .

One week we soaked all the labels off
the wine bottles and replaced them with
labels saying the wine was either from
North Dakota or from California. They
don’t even make wine ill orth Dakota.

Q: And It wasn ‘t the best wine?
A: It was all the same $2 cabernet. And
we found that if people thought it was
from California, they rated the wine as

>>>>>

NUTRITION ACTION HEALTHLETTER ■ MAY 20 1 3

https://smarterlunchrooms.org

https://mindlesseating.org

COVER STORY

better, they rated the food as better, they
stayed at the restaurant about 10 minutes
longer, and many of them made reserva­
tions to come back.

When we sen-ed them the North Dako­
ta wine, it poisoned the entire meal. They
didn’t rate the food as good, they left 10
minutes earlier, and they didn’t make res­
ervations to come back. That’s great news
you can use if you have people for dinner
parties. I find that if I’m running out of
time, 1 will make sure that the first thing
they eat is the best thing I’m cooking,
because it has a halo on everything you
eat. It’s so powerful.

Interestingly, both groups drank the
same amount of wine… which was all of
it. It’s free? Sure.

Q: Any other tips for cooking at home?
A: The power of expectation is immense.
We did a study where we gave people a
really good brownie on a napkin, a paper
plate, or a really nice piece of Wedgwood
china. And we asked what they thought
of the brownie.

If they ate it on the napkin, they’d say,
“Wow, this is really good.” On a paper
plate, they said, “This is really, really
good.” If they ate it off of Wedgwood
china, they would say, “This is the great­
est brownie I’ve eaten in my entire life.”
And the amount they were willing to pay
for it tripled.

So when I’m having people over for
dinner, if I put the nice china out and put
a tablecloth on and candlelight, they’ll
think the dinner is more amazing and that
I’m a more amazing cook than if I don’t.

Q: If we leave the food ·on the table,
do people eat more?
A: Guys eat about 29 percent more if you
put the serving dish on the table instead
of the counter. Women eat about 10 per­
cent more if you put it on the table.

The primary reason is that guys eat very
fast. They finish a meal, and then they
impatiently watch while the rest of the
family pokes at their food. So guys often
have seconds and thirds. Women tend to
eat a bit slower and are not as prone to
going back for seconds and thirds.

. Q: Weren ‘t you also able to influence
how quickly people ate?
A : Yes. We had people eat lunch sitting

~ across from somebody who they believed
~ was also part of a taste-testing study. They
{ didn’t realize that the other person was a
~ researcher who was instructed to eat ei-
& ther SO percent more slowly or SO percent

SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL. These t wo plates contain the same amount of food . On the
smaller plate it looks like more, so you ‘re likely to eat less.

faster than the typical person would eat.
We called it forks per minute.

We found that when someone was paired
with someone eating faster, they ended up
eating significantly more calories than if
they ate alone. And when they were paired
with someone eating slower, they ate fewer
calories. There’s this mimicry effect.

Q: And we’re oblivious?
A : Yes. We did another study where we
brought in people for this free buffet
lunch. We found that if a woman was
following another woman, the woman
behind took, on average, a portion that
mimicked-though not exactly-the
serving taken by the woman in front.

Now, if a woman was following a guy,
the person in front mattered less. How
can you benchmark off a 240-pound guy
who’s wearing a baseball cap backwards?
For guys, the person in front had no im­
pact. Guys just fill their plate.

Q: Does It matter what the woman in
front looks like?

A : No. We put the person ahead of the
woman in line in a fat suit so she looked
obese. You might think, “Gee, if you fol­
low someone who’s really heavy and they
take a lot of food, you’re probably going
to take less because you’ll see the conse­
quences of eating too much.”

No. If the person ahead in line is really
heavy, the follower takes more. People
seem to think, “I’m not that heavy, so I
can afford to take a lot of food.” The same
thing happens if the server is in a fat suit.
We also varied the attractiveness of the
server, but that had no effect.

Q: Can ‘t people tell when they ‘re full?
A: Most people say, “Okay, all these little
things around me might influence me

a little bit. But I know when I’m full. I
know when to stop.” So we asked our­
selves, What happens if your plate never
empties? Would you eat like the family
dog until you threw up? So we brought in
these refillable bowls.

Q: People couldn’t see that the bowls
refilled as they ate?
A: Right. And those who unknowingly
ate out of the refillable soup bowl ate
73 percent more soup than others. When
we asked them if they were full, they
didn’t rate themselves as more full than
the other group. They’d say, “How can
1 be full? I have half a bowl of soup
left.”

Q: They relied on external cues?
A: Yes . The idea is that you count with
your eyes, not your stomach. We did a
similar study in Atlanta. We brought
people into an all-you-can-eat buffalo
wings restaurant.

We randomly assigned them to tables
where the bones left from the eaten wings
were either bussed or just kept building
up on the table so you could see how
much you’d taken.

We found that if the wings were taken
away, people ate around 28 percent more.
When the bones were gone, there was no
visual evidence that they were there to
begin with.

Q: So people kept eating?
A: Yes. And on the way out of the restau­
rant, we offered them all the chance to
test a free 450-calorie skillet cookie. Only
15 percent of the people who had seen
how many bones they had eaten took the
huge cookie.

The other group not only ate more
wings, but about 85 percent of them took

4 NUTRITION ACTION HEALTHLETTER ■ MAY 2011

average person believes our studies. At one of these, we said,

walk or a scenic walk.

given dinner, and they ended up

COVER STORY

the cookie. And two-thirds of them started
eating it before they even got to their car.

HEALTH HALO

Q: How did you discover that some
foods have a health halo?
A: We did four studies with dramatic
res ul ts. It started with our Subway study.
You see commercials with Jared saying,
“Look how much weight I lost.” I go
to Subway pretty regularly, and I’d see
people asking for do uble cheese and mayo
and other stuff. When I’d ask why they
eat at Subway, they’d say, “I watch what I
eat, a nd it’s a hea lthy place to eat.”

That led us to wonder who overeats
more-someone who eats at a Subway or
someone who eats at a burger place like
McDonald’s-especially if you define
overeating as eating more calories than
you think . So we did a number of studies.

One involved intercepting people who
just finished dinner at a McDonald’s or
a Subway at a mall. And we found that
the typica l person leaving McDonald’s
was eating about 1,090 calories, but they
thought they had eaten 880 calories,
which isn’t a bad guess.

In contrast, people leaving Subway
believed they were eating about 495 calo­
ries, and they really averaged 680 calories.

Q: So the McDonald’s eaters under­
estimated their calories by 19 per-
cent, but the Subway eaters under­
estimated by 27 percent?
A: Yes. Because of Subway’s health
halo, they underesti mated the calories
in the sandwich, they didn’t count the
extra cheese or mayo, and it led them
to think that the chips are healthier.
The Subway eaters thought they were
being virtuous and they weren’t.

Q: What other foods have a halo?
A: A health halo permeates a lot of
our food decisions. I just had a dis­
sertation defense for a student who
found that if people were given a food
labeled “organic,” t hey estimated the
calories as 15 to 20 percent lower than
if the food wasn’t called organic.

In another study, we gave people
an Italian sandwich and a menu
showing that it was either from Jim ‘s
Hearty Sandwich Shop or Good Karma
Healthy Foods. If they thought it was

{ from Good Karma, they estimated the

0
o calories as 24 percent lower than if they
tf. thought it was from Jim’s .

Q: What ‘s the harm If people underes­
timate?
A: If they thought the sandwich was from
Good Karma, they were much more likely
to order potato chips, a full-calorie soda,
and a cookie with the meal. And the
sandwich itself had 660 calories. So there
are real dangers to the health halo. It ‘s
not just that you underestimate calories.
It’s that the next step is to reward yourself
by eating even more.

Q: What else creates a halo?
A : We did another study about the low­
fat loophole. We invited people to watch
a movie in an art house, and afterwards,
we offered them some snacks. We labeled
a low-fat trail mix as either “low-fat” or
“regular.” We did the same with regular
M&M’s.

We found that if you give people a food
that they think is low-fat, they eat 21 to
46 percent more calories, even if they rate
the food as tasting wor e or even if it ‘s the
exact same food as the regular version .

Q: Why?
A: One reason is that people estimate the
food to be lower in calories than it is . An­
other is that they believe that since they ‘re

eating something that isn’t as
good as the real thing, they

deserve a little bit more.
In our studies, the

WORKOUT REWARD? Can you afford 580 calories
for a venti White Chocolate Mocha and another 490
for a slice of Banana Walnut Bread after the gym?

that a low-fat version of a snack has 40
percent fewer calories. People think
they’re being tremendously virtuous so
they overeat. In reality, we found that
snack foods that are labeled low-fat aver-

NUTRITION ACTION HEALTHLETTER ■ MAY 2011

age only 11 percent fewer calories than
the regular versions .

Q: Do foods labeled low-calorie have
a halo?
A: Yes, but if the label says it’s low-calo­
rie, it has so few calories that you really
can eat more.

EXERCISE

Q: How does exercise Influence what
we eat?
A: We found that exercise can have an
opposite impact than we might expect.

Jn one study, we showed people normal
ads for washers and dryers and such be­
fore a meal, or we showed them exercise
ads . If people saw the exercise ads and
they were reasonably active exercisers,
the ads dramatically decreased how much
they ate.

We think the ads bring to mind how
much you have to do to work off a certain
amount of calories. So it ‘s a pretty dra­
matic reminder. The ads have much less
impact if people aren’t exercisers. So if
you’ re a pretty good exerciser, it might be
a pretty good idea before dinner to think
about your next workout.

Q: Does the exercise Itself matter?

A: Yes. Ever y June we have consumer
camp for anyone from anywhere in the
country who’s been involved in one of

“We’re through for the day but dinner
isn’t ready yet so we ‘re going to take
a one-mile walk around Beebe Lake.”
The students who set the pace told
them that it was either an exercise

On the exercise walk, the students
would say, “We’re a quarter way

through, ” or “We’re halfway
through, keep your heartbeat

going, keep it high .” On the
scenic walk, the students would say,
“Here ‘s the stone bridge that was built
in 1922,” or “Look, there’s an island
and three kinds of birds live on the is­
land .” And it was an easy walk but the
same pace and distance in both cases.

When they got back, they were

eating more calories i~ they had been
on the exercise walk . And most of the
increase was from dessert. The exercise
group estimated that they had burned
more calories, and they ended up eating
more calories.

>>>>>
5

COVER STORY

Q: They figured that they deserved a
reward?
A: Exactly.

THE INTELLIGENCE TRAP

Q: It seems that people always find a
rationale to eat more.
A: Yes. Intelligent people especially can
figure out a rationalization for anything
they want to believe. We call it the intel­
ligence trap.

And with food, it’s the tyranny of the
moment. It might be the same with drug
users. People say, “Well, I was going to
stop using heroin or smoking cigarettes
today, but today was really difficult,”
or “Today is a day to celebrate,” or “It’s
Friday,” or whatever. We can always think
of why the day is unique so that we don’t
have to do something.

Q: And ads urge us to celebrate or sug­
gest that “You deserve a break today. ”
A: When l was in college, the ads said,
“Weekends are made for Michelob.” And
on weekends, we’d spend an extra 25
cents for a Michelob because, by golly, we
deserved it.

Q: So well-educated people believe
that they don’t eat mindlessly?
A: Right. Many believe that an
informed, intelligent person would
never be fooled by these cues. When I
gave a talk at the Institute of Medi­
cine of the National Academy of Sci­
ences a while back, that was the very
question I was asked.

“Clearly, once you tell an informed,
intelligent person about this, problem
solved,” they said. “So global educa­
tion is the answer.” Of course, if you
have 17 years of college behind you,
you’re likely to think that education
is the answer to everything.

Q: But It doesn’t work?
A: No. We did a study where we took
60 tremendously motivated, intel­
ligent grad students. For 90 minutes
in one class I told them, “If 1 give you
a big bowl of Chex Mix, you will eat
a lot more than if I give you a slightly
smaller bowl.”

And for 90 minutes, I had illustra­
tions and lecture and videotapes and
broke them into study groups to show
how they can fight this. Then they went
home for holiday vacation.

When they returned, I invited them to
a Superbowl party at a sports bar. They
were led randomly into one of two rooms
that were identical except that one room
had enormous bowls of Chex Mix and
the other had bowls that were slightly
smaller.

Q: And they could take as much as
they wanted?
A: Yes. And we found that the typical
person serving themselves from a large
bowl took and ate about 53 percent more
food, even though six weeks earlier
they’d gone through a 90-minute session
with a demonstration and videos and
they came up with strategies to prevent it
from happening to them .

And it was the exact same food in the
same orange bowls that they saw in the
videos. The same bowls!

Afterwards, we asked people if they
thought they took more from the bigger
bowls. They said no. And everyone had
an excuse like, “I took more because I
didn’t have breakfast on Tuesday.”

That study, which was published in the
Journal of the American Medical Association,
illustrated that education is probably not
the way to go .

HEALTH HALO. People often eat more of
lower-fat snacks, but they’re not that much
lower in calories.

Q: Do some people think that they’re
Immune?
A : Yes. What makes this stuff so difficult
is that people confidently think, “Now

that I know it, it shan’t influence me.”
But we found that even professional

bartenders are influenced. When we
showed them that they poured more into
a short wide tumbler than a tall narrow
highball glass that held the same amount
of liquid, they still mixed and poured
more into the tumbler 45 seconds later.

It influenced incredibly smart and mo•
tivated grad students who we bored for 90
minutes with this one concept. Six weeks
later, they ate 140 calories more if they
were given larger bowls.

I explained at a meeting of the Ameri­
can Diabetes Association how these biases
influence people. And then I turned
right around and put them in a study
and showed that they were influenced as
much as a typical person we recruit from
the mall.

Q: What tricked the bartenders?
A: The shape of the glasses. We asked
them to pour a drink into 10 oz. glasses
that were either short, wide tumblers or
tall, thin highball glasses. Even though
the typical bartender had over six years
of experience, on average, they served
20 percent more in the short wide
glasses.

People’s overconfidence is just amazing.
And we find that the smarter people are,

the more they get fooled because they
believe that they are smarter than a
bowl or because they went to Welles­
ley. Just joking. I hope you didn’t go
there.

Q: So you can’t make yourself less
mindless?
A: This whole idea that you can pre­
vent mindless eating with the power
of your mind is a tremendous fallacy.
When I talk about mindless eating,
some people erroneously say, “Then
the secret to solving mindless eating
is to eat mindfully.”

No, not if you’re 95 percent of
the population. To eat half of a pea
and ask, “Am I full yet?” may work
for some people. And I know calorie
counting and pre-portioning works
for some people.

But for most Americans, our
lives are way too chaotic to accom­
modate that. We have screaming
kids running around the table, a

to-do list before dinner that’s 40 things
long, we’re thinking about how things
went at work that day, how they didn’t
go how we wanted.

6 NUTRIT I ON ACTION HEALTHLETTER ■ MAY 2011

Q: And we get Interrupted by
phone calls, e-mails, texts.

A: Right. So for normal people, the
solution is not mindful eating. It’s to
set up our environment, whether at
our home or work, so that we mind­
lessly eat less, rather than just
continue to gorge ourselves.

WHAT WORKS

Q: What changes should we
make?
A: The good news is that for every
external cue that messes people up
in our studies, you can solve the
problem by doing t he opposite. If go­
ing from a 10-inch to a 12-inch plate
causes you to eat 22 percent more, use a
10-inch or 9½-inch plate.

Use smaller bowls. Don’ t rely on your
willpower or the power of education.
Don’t say, “Now I know that I’m three
times more likely to eat the first thing I
see in my cupboard than the fifth thing I
see in my cupboard … but l won’t let that
in flu en ce me.” It abso lutely will!

The solution is to make sure that the
first thing you see-the thing that’s
front and center-is healthier than that
chocolate-covered foie gras.

People eat food that’s on the table
m uch more freq uently than food that’s
off the table, so just put the salad and
vegetables on t h e table. Leave everything
else on the counter or stove.

Q: What else can people do at home?
A: Package things in smaller containers.
If you want to buy in bulk, that’s smart.
But when you buy in bulk, you eat in
bulk, so you have to repackage the food
in smaller baggies or Tu pperware-like con­
tainers. Then you’ll eat only the amount
you p ut in .

Q: Are these small differences In calo­
ries enough to matter?
A: W hen you put them all together,
they’re not additive, but the effect is still
positive. Let’s say that a smaller plate
makes you eat 22 percent less, a smaller
serving spoon means you eat 14 percent
less, and a sma ller serving bowl helps you

~ eat 50 percent less. If you do all of those,
~ yo u don’t eat 86 percent less or you’d
{ starve and die. It’s going to be somewhere
~ in between. But the overall influence is
&. that you’re eating less.

REPACKAGE. Each 140-calorie serving of this
trail mix is just 3 tablespoons. Odds are, you’ll
eat more if you eat out of the large bag.

FOOD PACKAGING

Q: Do people eat less from 100-calorie
packs?
A: We did the research on that in 1996,
before they were on the market. We gave
people candy that was either in one
440-calorie serving or in four 110-calorie
servings.

We found that about 70 percent of peo­
ple ate less when we broke the candy into
these smaller-size mini-packs . And half of
them said that they’d pay an average of
15 percent more per ounce for something
that causes them to eat less.

So I called up all the major snack-food
manufacturers-M&M/Mars, abisco,
Kellogg, and Kraft-and I said, “We’ve got
a great way you can make a lot of money
and help people eat less .”

I presented the research, and their
staff said it was interest ing but they
couldn’t wrap their heads around the
idea that people would pay a premium
for something that wou ld help them with
self-control. About two years later, the
100-calorie packs came out. But it was
hard to convince food companies at first,
because they were stuck thinking that
people would only pay more for more
food .

Q: Do 100-calorle packs work for
everyone?
A : Overweight people are more respon­
sive. I think it’s because they’re used to
eating a bigger volu me without thinking
about it, and all of a sudden this causes
them to think about it.

In contrast, a skinny person might eat
less and be less prone to overindulging.
In about 30 percent of people, mini-packs

had no effect or they made people eat
more . If you typically eat about 250
calories of M&M’s and there’s only 200
in two mini-packs, you think, “I’d like
a couple more,” so you open the third
pack and it’s gone .

SCHOOL LUNCHES

Q: What have you done with
school lunches?
A: The New York State Depart­

ment of Health called us to say that a
bunch of upstate schools were get ting
grants of $3,000 or $4,000 to increase
fr u it sales by 5 percent. They asked,
“How much do we need to decrease
the price of fruit to increase sales? ”

I said, “I think you could make the fruit
free and people aren’t going to eat 5 per­
cent more. Why don ‘t I take a team up
there for a couple of days and we’ll figure
something out?”

And we found that all these schools
serve fruit in these stainless steel contain­
ers underneath these sneeze shields in a
dark part of the food line.

Q: That sounds unappetizing.
A: So we said, “Why don’t you buy a
cheap, colorful bowl at Goodwill or find
one in your basement and put the food in
a well-lit part of the line? ”

And when they did that, fruit sales
initially went up 187 percent. And over
the course of the semester, they dropped
to the point where they were selling 104
percent more fr u it than at the beginning
of the year. And the p rice of the bowls
ranged from $15 to $30, so they still had
a whole lot of money left over.

Q: Having food visible makes a differ­
ence?
A: Yes. With ad ults, we found that cover­
ing the clear window of the ice cream
freezer with butcher paper decreased how
much people took by 30 percent . The nice
thing is that the person who eats it two or
three times a week can still find it. Others
may not think abo ut ice cream if they
don’t see it.

Q: And people can do the same at
home?
A: Sure. Why not make’ the fruit bowl
more visible? Put your fruit on the table
and not in the refrigerator bin. People say,
“That’s okay because I have self-control.”
Why not give your self-control a break? i

NUTRITION ACTION H EA LT H L ETTER ■ MAY 2011 7

www.eatingmindfully.com @Susan Albers 2015

5 S’s of Mindful Eating
By Dr. Susan Albers

1) SIT DOWN. Have a seat! Avoid nibbling in front of the refrigerator or
snacking in your car. Put food on a plate. You will enjoy food more and eat
less when you give eating your full attention. “Only eat of your feet.”

2) SLOWLY CHEW. Eat with your non-dominant hand (if you are right hand-
ed eat with your left). Research indicates that eating with your opposite hand
can reduce how much you eat by 30%. Intentionally chew slower than the
person you are eating with. “Pace, don’t race.”

3) SAVOR. Take a mindful bite. Smell. Taste. Notice and look at each spoon-
ful. Turn of the TV and other distractions. “When you eat, just eat.”

4) SIMPLIFY. Put healthy foods in a convenient place like on the counter.
Place treats out of view. Research indicates that people tend to eat what is in
their immediately reach. “In sight, in mind, out of sight, out of mind.”

5) SMILE. Smiling can create a brief pause between your current bite and
the next one. During that gap, ask yourself if you are just satisfed, not full.
“Take a breath, to manage stress.”