Several recent studies depict the folly of human food consumption. A 2006 study in the International Journal of Obesity found that when candy was placed in a clear dish, people ate 71% more than when it was in an opaque dish. The same study found that the closer the food, the more likely it would be eaten.
The same research group, headed by Brian Wansink, director of Cornell University's Food and Brand Lab, also found that people don't necessarily stop eating when full. People eating from soup bowls that were secretly refilled ate 73% more soup. That study was published in 2005 in Obesity Research.
"Eating behaviors are like a lot of other lifestyle behaviors; you tend to repeat them, often in the same context, same location, with the same people, at the same time of day," Wood says. "When people repeat behaviors in that way, they become automatic. They are cued by the context and no longer involve decision-making."
That doesn't mean people are weak or stupid, however. Human brains have to operate on autopilot sometimes in order to accomplish more difficult mental tasks that involve analytical, creative or abstract thought, Cohen says.
"There is a benefit to being automatic," she says. "It frees us up to do what is more important. Trying to change automatic behavior is going to be an exercise in frustration."
The fact that food is everywhere in today's society is a problem, Cohen says, because people appear to be biologically configured to eat, eat, eat.
"People are designed to overeat," she says. "We have a mechanism to store extra calories when we are given too much to eat. When you increase portion sizes, whether someone is fat or thin, neurotic or not neurotic, we eat too much."
The fact that many people are not overweight is due to individual differences in environments and sensitivity to environmental cues. Genes vary too. Knowledge and self-control have little to do with it, she says.
"Do you think people are less responsible than they were 20 years ago?" Cohen says. "What has happened in our environment between now and 20 years ago? I don't think responsibility has anything to do with this. That is the wrong emphasis."
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A long-term struggle
Good intentions are often a poor foil to such overwhelming environmental and biological cues.
"I think a lot of people know what they should be eating," says Ruth Frechman, a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Assn. who has a private practice in Burbank. "But because of their habits, they aren't doing it."
