A New Technique For Reducing Cravings For Junk Food

A New Technique For Reducing Cravings For Junk Food.
Researchers piece that they may have hit on a budding trick for weight loss: To eat less of a certain food, they suggest you prophesy yourself gobbling it up beforehand. Repeatedly imagining the consumption of a food reduces one's edacity for it at that moment, said lead researcher Carey Morewedge, an assistant professor of social and conclusion sciences at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. "Most people think that imagining a chow increases their desire for it and whets their appetite. Our findings show that it is not so simple," she said.

Thinking of a food - how it tastes, smells or looks - does multiplication our appetite. But performing the mental symbolism of actually eating that food decreases our desire for it, Morewedge added. For the study, published in the Dec 10, 2010 flow of Science, Morewedge's team conducted five experiments. In one, 51 individuals were asked to dream up doing 33 repetitive actions, one at a time.

A jurisdiction group imagined putting 33 coins into a washing machine. Another collection imagined putting 30 quarters into the washer and eating three M&Ms. A third circle imagined feeding three quarters into the washer and eating 30 M&Ms. The individuals were then invited to nosh freely from a bowl of M&Ms.

Those who had imagined eating 30 candies in truth ate fewer candies than the others, the researchers found. To be ineluctable the results were related to imagination, the researchers then mixed up the experiment by changing the number of coins and M&Ms. Again, those who imagined eating the most candies ate the fewest.

In three additional experiments, Morewedge's clique confirmed that imagining the eating reduced realized consumption through a process known as habituation. Simply rational about the food repeatedly or imagining eating a different food did not significantly influence consumption, the researchers also found.

This simulation craftsmanship might also help reduce cravings for unhealthy foods and drugs, the authors say. However, at least one wizard had reservations about the findings. "This small analysis may offer insights for further research, but the message is not that we can think ourselves thin or reduce food cravings by recurrently imagining eating a certain food," said Samantha Heller, clinical nutrition coordinator at the Center for Cancer Care at Griffin Hospital in Derby, Conn.

It was not in the opportunity of the study to search how long the effect described lasted, but it is important to consider, she said. Was it five minutes? Two days? Were the participants avid during one part of the study but not during another arm of the experiment? And were they natural weight, overweight or underweight, she asked. "All these factors, and many more, could affect how someone responds to frequently imagining eating a certain food," Heller said.

Overweight or obese commonality may have very different psychological and biochemical responses to this simulation approach compared with normal-weight individuals, she noted. "Food cravings are a complex associate of physiological, psychological, environmental and hormonal aspects," Heller added prices. "Adopting strong lifestyle habits, such as eating vegetables, fruits, legumes and full grains, and exercising, may help reduce the strength and frequency of food cravings," she added.