'Shortcuts' Of The Mind Lead To Miscalculations Of Weight And Caloric Intake, Study Finds

[steven johnson]

Apparently, we are geneticallly programmed to ignore the increased caloric content of food as the portion size increases. This cognitive distortion makes it very difficult to keep from overeating since the caloric content is not obvious. In other words, at least some of us are genetically preprogrammed to overeat. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081003122705.htm

And overweight people don't have respond to satiety cues telling them they've had enough.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080109112302.htm

In my case I'm just big boned.

ScienceDaily (June 16, 2009) — Psychologists at the University of Pennsylvania have identified a cognitive shortcut, or heuristic, they call "Unit Bias," which causes people to ignore vital, obvious information in their decision-making process, points to a fundamental flaw in the modern, evolved mind and may also play a role in the American population's 30 years of weight gain.

When estimating calories, study participants assumed portion sizes were culturally typical and guessed no caloric differences between small and large portions.

"We have heuristics in our brain — simple mechanistic shortcuts that have evolved over hundreds of thousands of years, which free up precious space in our consciousness," said Andrew Geier, lead author in the Department of Psychology in Penn's School of Arts and Sciences. "In these atypical instances, however, it's the shortcut that hurts us."

"We have evolved in a very different environment," Geier said. "It used to be that food was scarce, and you ate what was available because you didn't know where your next meal would come from. That is not the case anymore.

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[Catshrink]

1. Yep...

this is also discussed in Kessler's book. Sorry to harp on it, but it totally opened my eyes.

[supernova]

2. All the more reason to

1) Eat off the salad or desert plate as your main plate, rather than the typical dinner plate.

2) Carefully control portions. Use a food scale if you have to.

[Catshrink]

4. Excellent advice.

I can't tell you how much this has helped me. I used to think that fruit was "free" so I'd eat what I wanted figuring hey, it isn't ice cream or chips. Of course not, but fruit does have carbs. And I do use a food scale to help resize portions in my head. Overtime my sense of normal size portion got skewed.

I don't eat out much these days -- both to save money and to control what I'm eating. When I do, I'll ask for the doggie bag/box to be delivered before or when the meal arrives so I can immediately box up half of it. If it isn't on the plate, I won't eat it.

Another thing I do before I go out is visit the restaurant's website. If they have nutritional information, I use that to figure out what is "safe" to eat. I met some friends at Einstein's last week and did this. I thought the Chipotle Turkey Wrap would be safe. Not with 37 fat grams and 800+ calories!!! Holy Moly! I opted for the Ancho Chicken thing that was less than 400 calories. It was on the store's menu but not the website and I don't know how many fat grams it had but at least the calorie count was down.

[supernova]

5. Oh yeah,

totally agree with you about being able to look at the menu ahead of time. I really appreciate restaurants who put their food info on line.

[steven johnson]

3. Here's the missing URL from the story

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090615153116.htm -