Mental Imagery To Curb Food Consumption

Fat loss is ultimately a mind game. It starts and continues in our psyches - bringing things like food consumption to the forefronts of our brains and finding ways to fight the urge to overeat.

A study in the December issue of Science suggests that to eat less of a certain food, envision yourself gobbling it up beforehand.

Lead researcher Carey Morewedge, an Assistant Professor of Social and Decision Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, said this;

Most people think that imagining a food increases their desire for it and whets their appetite. Our findings show that it is not so simple... Thinking of a food -- how it tastes, smells or looks -- does increase our appetite. But performing the mental imagery of actually eating that food decreases our desire for it. Source

Morewedge's team conducted five experiments. In one, 51 individuals were asked to imagine doing 33 repetitive actions, one at a time. A control group imagined putting 33 coins into a washing machine. Another group imagined putting 30 quarters into the washer and eating three M&M's A third group imagined feeding three quarters into the washer and eating 30 M&M's.

The individuals were then invited to eat freely from a bowl of M&M's. Those who had imagined eating 30 candies actually ate fewer candies than the others, the researchers found.

Even when changing the number of coins/M&M's to be imagined, those who imagined eating the most ate the least.

Morewedge hypothesises that the results are a process called habituation. Interestingly, simply thinking about the food repeatedly, or imagining eating a different food did not have a significant impact on consumption.

I firmly believe that healthy eating and fat loss start and end with mindset changes. This study is a small example, and hence more comprehensive studies will be needed to draw any hard-lined conclusions.

I have no doubts that bringing eating out of the subconscious and into the forefront of the brain is one of the most significant things you can do to eat less/better. I think now it's a matter of figuring out what techniques are the most effective.

Image Credit: Blantant News

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