Eating Habits Make Moviegoers Eat Stale Popcorn

Most people I know who stay at a healthy weight or can drop unwanted pounds have to carefully monitor what they eat.

But maybe we should be thinking more about where we eat.

And with which hand.

Eating, it turns out, is not just about what tastes good and whether you’re hungry. Your brain has other plans. Certain environments and habits can lead you to eat food that doesn’t really taste good, hampering your weight loss efforts.

Researchers from the University of Southern California found that people who regularly ate buttery popcorn at the movies would eat just as much of the fattening snack whether it was still hot or popped more than a week ago.

Why would someone want to fill up on something that has the texture of a cold sponge?

“People believe their eating behavior is largely activated by how food tastes,” said Wendy Wood, a USC psychology professor, in a news release. “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 stale.”

In another experiment with eating popcorn at the movies, researchers instructed some people to eat with their non-dominant hand. They ended up eating much less of the stale than the fresh popcorn.

Now that’s a trick anyone can try.

Alice Warchol is a fitness instructor and freelance health writer.

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