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Tip 6 - Reduce Mindless Eating By Concealing Food

20 February 2009

Remember The Old 'SeaFood' Diet?

We used to joke about the seafood diet as kids - the standard line being, "yeah I'm on a diet, a seafood diet... I see food and I eat it!".

How true we kids were. The simple act of sighting food really does encourage us to eat, according to food psychologists. Or in scientific terms, merely seeing food can stimulate "unplanned consumption". For example, nearly 50% more Hershey's kisses were eaten by secretaries in a US study when the chocolates were stored in clear jars rather than opaque jars on the secretaries desks¹.

The sight of food isn't just a temptation, according to food psychologists, it may actually induce a physiological response. For starters, our salivation may increase and our perceived hunger may increase too, all in all it's bad news for our appetites - and just because we LOOKED at food.

Out Of Sight Out Of Mind - Store Food Appropriately

Nothing could be more true than the old adage 'out of sight, out of mind' when it comes to food. If we can't see it, we don't think about it as often. If we can't see it, we don't induce a physiological response that encourages consumption. Storing tempting and not-so-healthy food out of sight is a good way to encourage healthy eating - healthy eating involves eating appropriate foods when we're truly hungry or at set times such as standard main meal times.

Practical Advice - Store Food Out Of Sight

Use these simple tips to encourage healthy eating:

Check your kitchen - what food catches your eye when you walk in? If it's a fruit bowl on the kitchen counter that's great, if it's a cookie jar that's not so great. Move cookie jars and lollie jars and any other high-energy snack or treat foods out of sight. Put them in the pantry or cupboards (see suggestions below).
Leave a fruit bowl in a visible position on the kitchen counter if possible, it's a great way to encourage fruit consumption, most of us could do with a bit more fruit in our diet;
Check your pantry/kitchen cupboards - what is the first thing that catches your eye? If it's high-fat or high-sugar treats and snacks then it's time for change (see suggestions below);
Store treat foods (e.g. chocolates, candy, lollies, potato chips etc) in non-transparent containers in the back of your pantry or kitchen cupboards so they're not visible (old ice-cream containers come in handy for this);
Store healthier snack foods (e.g. nuts, dried and tinned fruit, popcorn, breakfast cereals, rice crackers etc) in transparent containers in the front of your pantry or cupboards, this will make them the most visible option and therefore the first option when you're looking for a snack;
Check your refrigerator - see Tip 1 - Foolproof Your Fridge For Healthy Eating for more on this topic;
Stockpiled foods - if you have bought a pile of food that was on special or price-reduced, be sure to store it appropriately at home, reduce the visibility of stockpiled food by shifting it to the back of the pantry or into the basement;
At work - do you have a personal store of food for snacks or lunches in your workplace? If so, take a good look at how and where you've stored it. Does it meet the above suggestions? Treats stored in non-transparent containers? If not - move them now to inside a filing cabinet or desk.
Add a small fruit bowl to your office desk - let fresh, healthy fruit be the first food that catches your eye.

A Nutritionist's Perspective

We're very good at collecting treat foods in our household - it's literally bursting out of the cupboards, I've actually been hit on the head by falling Toblerones before today (from the top kitchen cupboard). I really have no idea how we manage to end up with so much chocolate, lollies and candy. I think it's because my husband travels so much for work, so people are always giving us food gifts wherever we go. Which is very lovely and generous of them... I just have to be very diligent at home and ensure I hide all the treat foods from us.

Having chocolate falling on your head in the kitchen is not good. And it's also not good to see chocolate staring back at you when you open the pantry door. So what I've done is save up the old plastic icecream containers (yes we go through a few of those - low-fat icecream mind you) and I store any chocolates or sweets we're given inside the icecream containers. I write on the side what's stored inside and then pop them up in out top kitchen cupboards.

And as I get older I've realised my memory is not what it used to be. Still, there is always a silver-lining to every cloud... my silver-lining for the bad memory problem is that I forget where I've stored the treat foods. And that's even better than not being able to see the treat foods, one of the benefits of advancing age!

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References:

¹ Wansink B, Painter J E & Lee Y-K. 2006. The office candy dish: proximity's influence on estimated and actual consumption. International Journal of Obesity 30:871–875.