Each month Abington Library will feature a favorite book from a faculty, staff member, or student. They will give a brief synopsis of their chosen book.
Megan Jones is Instructor of Nutrition at ASU-Beebe.
Mindless Eating by Brian Wansink
Review by Megan Jones
Mindless Eating by Brian Wansink is not only an interesting read but an informative one. In this book he explores why we eat the way we do. Most of us probably think we stop eating when we are full, but through research he found that there are other cues around us that greatly influence how much we eat. One example of his research study included stale popcorn at the movie theater. He and his students offered free popcorn to everyone coming to a specific movie theater. Each person that bought a ticket was offered a medium-sized bucket of popcorn or a very large bucket of popcorn. What the people who were gifted this popcorn didn’t know was that the popcorn was really stale. What they found through this particular study was that people that had the very large bucket of popcorn ate on average 53% more popcorn than those that ate from a medium sized popcorn bucket, even though the popcorn did not taste very good. He repeats these types of studies and finds over and over again that if we eat from large plates, bowls, buckets, etc. we tend to eat more. After discussing his research, Brian Wansink then gives tips on how to eat less without even realizing it. Wansink states “The best diet is the one you don’t know you are on.” Check out “Mindless Eating” by Brian Wansink if you want to find out more about the psychology of eating and how you can be more mindful of how you eat.
