- Study got half a group of women to eat pasta from plate, told them it was a meal
- Other half given pasta to eat from plastic, ate standing up, told it was snack
- All were offered sweets, with the ‘snackers’ eating, on average, twice as many
Everyone knows snacking is bad for your waistline – and now, psychologists have found the word itself is a health hazard.
They drew their conclusion after a study in which 80 women each ate pasta.
Half were served their food in a small plastic pot, ate it standing up, and were told it was a snack.
Psychologists have found that even the word snack can be a health hazard
The group that ate the same amount of pasta from a plate, ate fewer sweets after their meal
The others sat down with the same amount of pasta put on plates as a meal.
A little later, all were offered sweets, with the ‘snackers’ eating, on average, twice as many. The findings appeared in the research journal Appetite.
Deanne Jade, of the National Centre for Eating Disorders, said: ‘It is as if the brain does not pay the same amount of attention when it’s a snack.’