For many, a trip to the movies is not complete without a bucket of popcorn.
However researchers from the University of Southern
have used movie-goers and popcorn to highlight the way eating is affected
by our habits and location.
The researchers gave a group of movie
goers a bucket of popcorn as they entered the cinema. However not all the popcorn was the
same. Half the group were given freshly popped popcorn, while the others were given
stale popcorn which was one week old.
The people who didn't usually
have popcorn at the cinema ate less of the stale popcorn than the fresh because it didn't
taste very good – what you'd expect. However for those moviegoers who typically ate
popcorn when they went to the cinema, it made no difference if the popcorn was stale or
fresh, they ate the same amount.
As researcher David Neal says
"When we’ve repeatedly eaten a particular food in a particular environment,
our brain comes to associate the food with that environment and make us keep eating as
long as those environmental cues are present.”
The study shows
some interesting things about the way we eat, why people over-eat and the associations
which build up in our brains between what we're eating and what we're doing. Associations
which may be part of the reason many people over-eat, even when they're not hungry and
not enjoying the food.
As co-author Wendy Wood says "People believe
their eating behavior is largely activated by how food tastes. Nobody likes cold, spongy,
week-old popcorn. But once we've formed an eating habit, we no longer care whether the
food tastes good. We'll eat exactly the same amount, whether it's fresh or