The Syracuse Study: Can your Kitchen Counter Make You Fat?
Food on your counter relates to your weight – especially soft drinks and cereal! In a new study of 215 households in Syracuse, NY, researchers Brian Wansink, PhD (Cornell University), Drew Hanks, PhD (now at Ohio State University) and Kirsikka Kaipainen, PhD (Headsted, UK), found that women who had breakfast cereal sitting out on their counters weighed over 20-lbs more than their neighbor who didn’t, and those with either diet or regular soft drinks sitting out weighed over 24-lbs more. The good news? Those who had a fruit bowl on the counterweighed about 13-lbs less. In the study, published in Health Education & Behavior, 215 kitchens were photographed and catalogued and the women were weighed to determine if the food sitting out on a counter could predict a woman’s weight. The results showed that, the following foods were related to heavier inhabitants: Regular Soda +26 lbs Diet Soda +24 lbs Cereal +20 lbs Cookies, Crackers or Chips +8 lbs Fruit - 13 lbs “It’s your basic See-Food Diet – you eat what you see,” said lead author Brian Wansink, professor and director of the Cornell Food and Brand lab and author of Slim by Design: Mindless Eating Solutions for Everyday Life. “As a cereal lover, that’s what shocked me. Cereal has a health-halo, but if you eat a handful every time you walk by, it’s not going to make you skinny.” Although the study cautions that the findings are correlational, Wansink says, “We’ve got a saying in our Lab, ‘If you want to be skinny, do what skinny people do.’ If skinny people make their homes ‘Slim by Design’ by clearing the counters of everything but the fruit bowl, it won’t hurt us to do the same.” Funding for the study was provided by the National Institute of Health (Grant #1RC1HD063370-01). For more information about this study please visit: http://foodpsychology.cornell.edu/OP/Kitchen_Counters
Food on your counter relates to your weight – especially soft drinks and cereal! In a new study of 215 households in Syracuse, NY, researchers Brian Wansink, PhD (Cornell University), Drew Hanks, PhD (now at Ohio State University) and Kirsikka Kaipainen, PhD (Headsted, UK), found that women who had breakfast cereal sitting out on their counters weighed over 20-lbs more than their neighbor who didn’t, and those with either diet or regular soft drinks sitting out weighed over 24-lbs more. The good news? Those who had a fruit bowl on the counterweighed about 13-lbs less. In the study, published in Health Education & Behavior, 215 kitchens were photographed and catalogued and the women were weighed to determine if the food sitting out on a counter could predict a woman’s weight. The results showed that, the following foods were related to heavier inhabitants: Regular Soda +26 lbs Diet Soda +24 lbs Cereal +20 lbs Cookies, Crackers or Chips +8 lbs Fruit - 13 lbs “It’s your basic See-Food Diet – you eat what you see,” said lead author Brian Wansink, professor and director of the Cornell Food and Brand lab and author of Slim by Design: Mindless Eating Solutions for Everyday Life. “As a cereal lover, that’s what shocked me. Cereal has a health-halo, but if you eat a handful every time you walk by, it’s not going to make you skinny.” Although the study cautions that the findings are correlational, Wansink says, “We’ve got a saying in our Lab, ‘If you want to be skinny, do what skinny people do.’ If skinny people make their homes ‘Slim by Design’ by clearing the counters of everything but the fruit bowl, it won’t hurt us to do the same.” Funding for the study was provided by the National Institute of Health (Grant #1RC1HD063370-01). For more information about this study please visit: http://foodpsychology.cornell.edu/OP/Kitchen_Counters