Looking to lose weight? Think a happy thought before you eat. A new study shows food and mood don’t just rhyme.
“People use food either to maintain or regain a good mood; if you’re already in a good mood, you tend to eat more healthfully than in a bad mood, ” says Dr Brian Wansink, professor in Cornell’s Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management.
Wansink is co-author of Better Moods for Better Eating: How Mood Influences Food Choice, published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology.
Co-author Dr Meryl Gardner, associate professor of marketing at the University of Delaware’s Lerner College, says: “Understanding why we make bad food choices in bad moods can help us make better choices. When we think about the future, it’s as if we physically take a step back, enabling us to see more fundamental values – like health and nutrition. We can use that to make wiser choices rather than letting moods dictate behaviour.”
Gardner, Wansink and South Korean colleagues at Hanyang University and Yonsei University, say when people are in a good mood, they can take a big-picture perspective that allows focus on more abstract aspects of food, including how healthy it is.
The take away of this study: “You can change your mood and eat better. Before a snack or meal, think of something that makes you happy or grateful, and you’ll eat less and better, ” says Wansink. Newswire
