Once you start, it can be hard to stop. You know what I'm talking about. Ripping open that bag of chips and chomping until your hand grazes the bottom of the bag. Snacking. Night-time grazing.
But researchers at Cornell claim to have found a way for you to quit while you're ahead, or at least before you've killed a whole bag of Kettles.
By interspersing the snack with a red-coloured marker, researchers hope the mini stop signs may have the desired subconscious effect.
And their findings published in Health Psychology, a journal of the American Psychological Association, were encouraging. Having plied two groups of video-watching students with, respectively, regular chips and Lays Stackables, which contain the odd red-dyed chip, those with the red chips consumed about 50 percent less than their peers.
Moreover, they were also able to gauge how many chips they'd eaten, whereas those in the control group tended to underestimate the amount of chips they had consumed -- by about 13 chips.
"People generally eat what is put in front of them if it is palatable," said Brian Wansink, Cornell Food and Brand Lab director. "An increasing amount of research suggests that some people use visual indication -- such as a clean plate or bottom of a bowl -- to tell them when to stop eating."
"By inserting visual markers in a snack food package, we may be helping them to monitor how much they are eating and interrupt their semiautomated eating habits," he added.
Wansink, who is also best-selling author of "Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think."
The study's findings offer a promising strategy to reduce food intake and, therefore, curb obesity.
Gimmick or genius gastric trick? Would you buy a bag of "red" chips? Do you think the markers would make you think twice about how much you consume?
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