IF YOU DO ONE THING THIS WEEK:Don't reach to overeat
If you find you often reach for more food than you really need, then you could do your waistline a favour by making a subtle change: put the food you are not eating out of reach.
It could be as simple as preparing meals in the kitchen and eating in another room rather than leaving serving bowls on the table that invite second helpings.
Last month at the Experimental Biology 2010conference in California, Cornell psychologist Prof Brian Wansink and co-workers revealed the findings of a study on dishing in one place and dining in another.
They found that serving food from the cooker or kitchen counter instead of allowing refilling of plates at the table reduced food intake by up to 35 per cent.
Wansink’s group has also found that office workers cut their consumption of sweets by almost half if dishes containing the confectionery were placed two metres away from an individual rather than within arm’s reach.
– CLAIRE O’CONNELL
