Slim by Design

Recent research co-ordinated by psychologist Brian Warsink has revealed that your kitchen may not be helping you to stay a healthy weight and that the way we perceive things may not help either.

The Kitchen

• What is in the kitchen makes a difference, not the size of the kitchen. Women are more susceptible to this than men (this may be because women spend longer in the kitchen).
• Don't leave food lying around on the counter. This does not just apply to crisps and biscuits - but also breakfast cereals. They may have 'healthy' messages on the packaging but are typically calorie heavy.

Serving food

• If you serve the main parts of a meal at the stove or counter, people will eat 19% less in total than if they serve themselves at the table. But to encorage salad and veg eating, put these in bowls on the table.
• If plate colour is similar to food colour, you'll serve yourself more (e.g. white starches - potatoes, pasta, rice on a white plate). Try to use contrasting plate colours.

Eating out

• People seem to order healthier food if sat by a window or in a well-lit part of a restaurant. If sat at a dark table or booth, then tended to order fattier, calorie laden food and more of it. Those sat farthest from the door ate the fewest salads and were 73% more likely to order dessert.
• Those at tables close to the bar drank more alcohol than those seated 3 or more tables away from the bar.
• The closer the TV screen, the more fried food was ordered.
• Those at high-top bar tables ordered more salads and fewer desserts.

Acohol

• People pour 12% more into a wide glass than a tall glass of the same capacity. Even bartenders do this with cocktails, etc.: The survey showed that bartenders poured 32% more into wide glasses, and continued to do so even when the experimenters explained why it happens. (The brain registers the height of the liquid and not the volume.)
• Pour standing up - people pour less into a glass when looking down into it, as it appears fuller.
• Red wine is easier to see, so we pour about 9% less than white.

Quick checklist

• Do you serve salad or vegetables before a main meal?
• Do you put the main course on plates at the stove or counter?
• Are your dinner plates no more than 22 to 25 cm across?
• Do you eat at the table with the TV off?
• Do you have a maximum of two cans of soft drinks in the fridge at any time?
• Are your kitchen counters clean and organised?
• Do you pre-prepare fruit and veg and keep on the middle shelf of the fridge where it is easily seen?
• Do you have a minimum of six servings of protein in the fridge (e.g. tofu, yoghurts, eggs)?
• Do you keep all snacks in one inconveniently placed cupbaord?
• Is fruit the only food on the kitchen counter?

From an article (on his new book Slim by Design) by Brian Warsink in New Scientist, 10 January 2015