THURSDAY, Dec. 9 (HealthDay News) — Researchers report that they
may have hit on a new trick for weight loss: To take less of a certain
food, they recommend you envision yourself gobbling it up beforehand.
Repeatedly imagining the consumption of a food reduces one’s appetite
for it at that moment, stated lead researcher Carey Morewedge, an assistant
professor of social and decision sciences at Carnegie Mellon University in
Pittsburgh.
“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,” she
said.
Thinking of a food — how it tastes, smells or looks — does increase
our appetite. But performing the mental imagery of actually intake that
food decreases our desire for it, Morewedge added.
For the study, published in the Dec. 10 issue of Science,
Morewedge’s team conducted five experiments. In one, 51 individuals were
asked to envision 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 intake three M&Ms. A
third group imagined feeding three quarters into the washer and intake 30
M&Ms.
The individuals were then invited to take freely from a bowl of
M&Ms. Those who had imagined intake 30 candies actually ate fewer
candies than the others, the researchers found.
To be sure the results were related to imagination, the researchers
then blended up the experiment by changing the number of coins and M&Ms.
Again, those who imagined intake the most candies ate the fewest.
In three additional experiments, Morewedge’s group confirmed that
imagining the intake reduced actual consumption through a process known as
habituation. Simply thinking about the food repeatedly or imagining eating
a different food did not significantly influence consumption, the
researchers also found.
This simulation technique might also help reduce cravings for unhealthy
foods and drugs, the authors say.
However, at least one expert had reservations about the findings.
“This small study might offer insights for further research, but the
message is not that we can think ourselves thin or reduce food cravings by
repeatedly imagining intake a certain food,” stated Samantha Heller,
clinical nutrition coordinator at the Center for Cancer Care at Griffin
Hospital in Derby, Conn.
It was not in the scope of the study to analyze how long the effect
described lasted, but it is important to consider, she said. Was it five
minutes? Two days? Were the participants hungry during one part of the
study but not during another arm of the experiment? And were they normal
weight, overweight or underweight, she asked.
“All these factors, and many more, could affect how someone responds to
repeatedly imagining intake a certain food,” Heller said.
Overweight or fat people might have very different psychological and
biochemical responses to this simulation approach compared with
normal-weight individuals, she noted.
“Food cravings are a complex mix of physiological, psychological,
environmental and hormonal aspects,” Heller added.
“Adopting healthy lifestyle habits, such as intake vegetables, fruits,
legumes and whole grains, and exercising, might help reduce the strength and
frequency of food cravings,” she added.
More information
For more information on losing weight, visit the U.S. National Library of Medicine.