Weight control methods and strategies

Weight Control

There is a wrong notion that excessive eating habits occur because of the different food capacity that people are able to take, thus there are those who consider gastric bypass surgery to reduce stomach capacity to treat obesity. However, while it is true that reducing stomach capacity can reduce the eating capacity of an individual, it is important to consider that there are external factors causing uncontrolled eating habits that can be avoided to prevent uncontrolled eating habits. For instance, the way foods are enticingly presented can influence the eagerness of people to eat (even if it doesn't mean eating the enticing food that they have just seen but to merely just eat). This is called as the psychological factor to people's eating habits.

The Food Psychology online presents several studies of different instances proving how external cues can affect, particularly increase, people's food consumption and intake. Wasink and Van Ittersum, in their study that extends and focuses on studies suggesting that elongation of glasses affects consumption of drinks, concluded that there is a negative finding to the hypothesis. Instead, from the experiments that they conducted, they found that it is the number of times of pouring experience that influence the increase or decrease of drink consumption.

Another study, conducted by Chandon and Wansink (2002), concludes that stockpiling of foods increase food consumption for most products because of their immediate availability and visibility, particularly after purchase. This tends to influence the psychological thinking of the consumer, especially when he is not busy with anything, to eat some of the stockpiled products, thinking that he will consume only a few. Unknowing to him, stockpiling soon becomes a habit as well as the unnecessary consumption of food becoming a past time. This then defies the practice of eating only at the right time of the day, thus causing uncontrolled weight increase.

There are more studies that have been conducted that prove the influence of external cues to the eating habit of individuals. Some of which includes the influence of the food package sizes, the influence of nearness, visibility, and availability of foods, and the influence of the type of foods for consumption. Even if we ourselves are to analyze how we consume foods, we can realize that these influences listed by Food Psychology online have been actual influences to how we consume food. Isn't it that true that we tend to over-eat a particular food not only because we like its taste but because there is a characteristic in the food that we particularly like? For instance, there are those who unknowingly over-eat crackers because they like playing its crunchiness in their mouth. I myself tend to over-eat M&M chocolates not merely because I like chocolates, but because I like playing with its crispy chocolate shells in my mouth. Although it is known to me that too much sweet can cause weight increase, the external cue of the M&M chocolate somehow gives me the addiction to over-consume it. Or, isn't that there are those who tend to over-eat popcorns when watching movies. This happens not because they love to eat popcorns but because there is a psychological thinking of a desire to eat while watching a movie.