Harping on Healthy Eating Seldom Gets the Message Across
Katherine Schreiber, Psychology Today Magazine
Chances are, someone has told you to eat more fruit and vegetables. If it wasn't Grandma, then it was probably the government. From newsstands to iPhone apps, federal dietary guidelines are more accessible than ever. Nevertheless, chances are even greater that you haven't heeded the advice.
A mere 26.3 percent of American adults consumed three or more vegetable servings a day in 2009, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention--about the same as in 2000, despite a rising tide of information about healthy eating. Some 32.5 percent of us got in two or more daily fruit servings--a decline from 2000, when 34.4 percent of us consumed a couple of pieces of fruit a day. But both numbers fall far short of targets set by our nutritional keepers, the
"These reports are disappointing," declares CDC physician
Is a cup of spinach really that hard to stomach? Apparently it is, although Foltz hopes that the newly revised Dietary Guidelines for Americans might help it go down. They emphasize consumption of plants over grains, more nutrition education for schoolchildren, and fresher foods in school and workplace cafeterias.
Americans got their first taste of dietary guidelines in 1980, when officials laid out the nutritional elements shown to reduce the growing toll of chronic diseases. They boiled down to favoring fruits, vegetables, and whole grains--while shunning refined sugars, saturated fats, cholesterol, and sodium. The recommendations have since been revised every five years to incorporate the latest research.
Although the 2005 guidelines set off changes to food labels detailing nutritional content and spawned interactive food pyramids, they did little to stir up fruit and veggie enthusiasm. In fact, in a stunning example of the law of unintended consequences, which takes unique twists in the food realm, they might have inadvertently driven us away from the good stuff.
Our eating behaviors are particularly sensitive to "the ironic effect of external controls," contends
Finkelstein then explored how perceptions of our own control influence how hungry we think we are. Half of the 53 subjects were invited to try the protein bars before rating their hunger, and half were told that doing so was their job. Those who felt they had been denied a choice proved hungrier after their nosh.
Impose healthy eating and such are the consequences, Finkelstein insists. "Not only do many of us fail to associate healthier foods with satiation, most of us find nothing as fulfilling as free will. We experience a rebound in hunger and consumption when others make our food healthier for us," she explains.
BLAME BIOLOGY
"We're designed to be easily overwhelmed by high-fat and high-sugar foods," says
Of course, whatever fuel we don't end up using we store as fat. To our forever-foraging ancestors living at the edge of famine, this was an advantage. Modern Americans are still just as drawn to energy-rich foods although we're far less physically active. Enter obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and other maladies.
Ironically, the cure for our dietary woes might be a little less information. "More nutritional labeling doesn't get at the heart of the problem," observes
Simply surrounding ourselves with healthy foods could go a long way to getting them into our mouths.
"When you're distracted, hungry, or fatigued, you act on what's physically salient," says behavioral neuroeconomist Baba Shiv, of
"Basic behavioral principles can be applied to making lunchrooms smarter," Wansink says. Like moving the salad bar so that kids bump into it en route to the cash register. Placing chocolate milk behind the white milk. Labeling healthy foods "delicious" or "awesome." Giving kids a choice between celery and carrots, rather than just providing carrots, ups their carrot quotient by 30 percent.
"People taste what they think they're going to taste," he explains. "Telling a kid, 'Hey, eat this, it's healthy' is a really dumb way to approach the problem. The better and smarter way is to say something like, 'Hey, try this, it's really creamy."
CULINARY CONTRADICTIONS
Scratch a consumer and you'll expose lots of contradictions in their food consumption patterns. It's part of the human condition, says Finnish researcher Hanna Leipamaa-Leskinen. She asked 257 people ages 18 to 64 to cite their top impediments to leading a healthier lifestyle. The results:
28 percent didn't have enough time
20 percent found healthy items too costly
20 percent preferred to indulge
13 percent didn't want to violate the (unhealthy) eating habits of friends and family
12 percent were confused about which foods are healthy
4 percent preferred to stick to habitual eating patterns
3 percent didn't respond, and odds are they weren't off in the kitchen cooking cabbage
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