'gel/
major,
coii
costofi
:ral y (
‘y noi
beabt
It?’’
talk
Tricky with treats
Studies and experiments employ trickery to find out why United States is so fat
Page 3A • Thursday, March 4, 2004
ew sy$|
ive ton
ised, hi
nem;.-
IS WM
yea
y stem i
to replj)
allocair
the
increatt
ind friii:
syster
y
per yei
the
eimpti-
ingw
hick*.
By Andrew Martin
KRT CAMPUS
CHAMPAIGN, III. On a brisk fall morning, professor Brian
Vansink welcomed four graduate students to his lab for what they
bought was a taste test of tomato soup.
Unbeknown to the students, two of the four soup bowls were
ged to remain full, fed by hidden tubes. Twenty minutes later,
are wvlhe two students were surprised to learn their bowls had supply
lolesin the bottom and that they had eaten a third more than their
to hetii5 :olleagues.
:e fc6 That test is one of the experiments the University of Illinois'
tasenoij tank has conducted to figure out why people often eat more than
hey should. Several industries are under pressure to figure out why
a many Americans are overweight and what can be done about it.
Wansink is among researchers studying how external factors
’w!! packaging to advertising to dining companions influence eat-
ngbehavior. Experiments show that people do not necessarily stop
utingwhen their stomachs tell them to.
"People believe they're pretty good at calibrating what they eat,"
adWansink, 43, who studies the psychology of food. "I don't think
onotj teyare. I think they rely on benchmarks, essentially the fill level of
nanagflipcbowl There tends to be this visual cue that you're full."
During two years of Wansink’s soup experiment, students with
CT uJbottomless bowls tended to eaf 40 percent more than test subjects
steiaol wih regular bowls.
"[wasn't aware of it." said Nina Huesgen, one of the students
tteii »ithatrick bowl. "That's why I feel so filled up, I guess."
Jason Stokes, who was similarly duped, said, "I did notice that
ibowl level wasn't going down very much, but I thought that was
kcause 1 wasn't eating very much."
The soup test is one of the methods Wansink has used to show
lhalpeople often struggle to control their eating. People will shovel
inabucket of popcorn even if it's stale, and they'll gobble one candy
liter another if it's w ithin arm's reach, Wansink has found.
The research by Wansink, a professor of marketing, nutritional
science and agricultural economics, is particularly relevant because
recent studies have shown that portions in restaurants and in homes
have increased in the last few decades, most notably in "super-size"
fries and soft drinks offered by fast-food restaurants.
Recognizing the importance of portion size, the federal govern
ment is reworking the serving-size section of the nutrition facts label
on food packages to try to make it more useful to consumers. The
current description of serving sizes is so confusing that consumers
maybe underestimating how much they are eating, the Federal
Trade Commission said in a recent letter to the Food and Drug
Adtninmlon. which had sought comment from other federal
apcieson controlling obesity,
coned ^eppc also questioned whether serving-size information on
now ^ the food label was "sufficiently clear and prominent."
Thomas Franklin • KRT CAMPUS
Monclair State University students Julie Betz, left, and Liza Patterson decide on what they will eat for lunch at the Red Hawk Diner at Monclair State
in New Jersey. Students around the country have been the subject of some tricky studies to find out about eating habits of individuals and to see
at what point people quit eating. •
Some argue that the food industry should help by crafting small
er portions in supermarkets and in restaurants. But persuading food
packagers to encourage less eating will be a tough sell, analysts say,
because companies make more money if they sell more food.
Some nutritionists say the increase in portion size has fueled the
obesity epidemic, but Barbara Rolls, a professor of nutritional sci
ences at Penn State University, said it is difficult to prove that the
increase in portion size causes obesity.
The focus on where and how people eat needs to continue, said
Rolls, who has conducted research similar to Wansink's.
"I think it needs to be easier for people to eat healthier," she said.
"It's too easy for us to eat huge portions of high-calorie food.
In Rolls' research, she offered men and women different sizes of
submarine sandwiches over four days. When served a 12-inch sand
wich as compared with a 6-inch sandwich, men ate 56 percent more
than the men given a 6-inch sandwich while women served the
longer sandwiches ate 31 percent more than their counterparts who
received the shorter sandwiches.
Wansink said he believes portion size is a factor that contributes
to obesity, along with such features of modern life as elevators and
computer games that discourage exercise.
"In the obesity war, portion size is the first casualty," said
Wansink. "It's easy to point at, and we don't have to take
See Studies on page 4A
WOllli
seme#
eek sui
sessin
ne
e inctffi;
r semesE
d goi®l
Dll!!
ou $5'
jriialis 111
113;
i.net
ijnentW I
6964
;Dona |ft
European Camps Need YOU!
4 week ITC TEFL English
teaching course in Europe
Train - April/ May/ June
Teach - June/ July/ August
www. itc-t raining.com
NEED A
TUTOR?
Go To
AGGIETUTOR.COM
Where the real tutors are.
One-on-One Personalized
Tutoring at Reasonable Prices
www.aggietutor.com
The
Battalion
IN PRINT
ONLINE
ON RADIO
News
Sports
Opinion
Mailcall
Aqgielife
Photo
Graphics
Comics
AP News
Classifieds