Does seeing fat people cause overeating?
Seeing overweight people eat might lead to this
/ istockphoto(CBS) Why is it so hard to lose weight? People offer up all sorts of explanations, from being unable to resist the temptation of fatty food to being too busy to work out. But a new study seems to suggest a rather surprising cause:
Simply looking at fat people.
For the study - published in the Journal of Consumer Research - University of Colorado researchers offered candy to people who had been shown one of three pictures - a fat person, a normal-weight person, or a lamp. The researchers found that those who had seen the picture of the fat person took more candy than those who had seen either of the other photos.
In a similar study involving cookies, the same researchers found that people ate twice as many cookies after seeing a picture of an overweight person. And a 2007 Harvard study found that having obese friends tends to make people fat, NPR reported.
Not that it's so easy to find normal-weight friends these days - with recent research showing that roughly one-third of Americans are obese.
Why would seeing someone who's eaten a lot make people want to eat more?
"Seeing someone overweight leads to a temporary decrease in a person's own felt commitment to his or her health goal," the researchers said in a written statement released by the journal.
Does this mean people looking to lose weight should avert their eyes whenever a fat person passes by?
"That's one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard," Peggy Howell, of the National Association for the Acceptance of Fat People, told CBS News. "If we look at anorexic people, do we eat less?"
Maybe time for another study?
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National Association for the Acceptance of Fat People makes us fat
What you weigh is a matter af energy balance. Calories in/calories out; they have to match, otherwise your weight changes.
You want to lose weight? "Spend more than you earn". Sometimes going into debt is a virtue. You want to gain weight? (yeah, some do) "Earn more than you spend".
What has struck me and what may not be generally known is that energy balance I mentioned is incredibly fine tuned and even infinitesimal deviations from that balance can have major impacts over time.
Just 20 calories per day excess over a period of 25 years - say from high school graduation to the peak of your career - represents a 50 pound weight gain. 20 calories is two peanut MM's, 4 medium sized olives, half of a banana, two meduim sized carrots, 1/5 cup of skim milk. It ain't much!
But.....20 calories for a 150 pound person is also once around a 400 meter track, climbing three flights of stairs, a leisurely 3/4 mile bike ride, 15 minutes of easy weight training, 7 minutes of pulling weeds. That's not a whole lot, either....
It all boils down to energy balance and where and how that balance is struck is up to the individual.
This study reaches unacceptable levels of absurdity. Furthermore, people are fat and unhealthy because of meat and dairy.
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Don't think so.
My wife and I eat all of both we wish to and are not overweight.
Try living in front of the TV as the cause......
Funny, It makes me do just the opposite.
Something disguting does not stir appetite by any means....
You only get fat if you eat a lot and sit around and do nothing all the time, DUH!