Psychology 101 Research Paper
Mittal, D. (2010). Snacking While Watching TV Impairs Food Recall and Promotes Food Intake on a Later TV Free Test Meal. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 25, 871-877. doi: 10.1002/acp.1760
Have you ever sat in front of the TV devouring tons of snacks and not even paid attention to how much you had already eaten? That is why this essay sparked my attention! I constantly find myself in front of the TV craving snacks and chomping away, not even thinking about how much I am eating. Dolly Mittal, Richard J. Stevenson, Megan J. Oaten, and Laurie A. Miller conducted an experiment to find out if our memory is a factor for what we’ve already eaten. One amnesiac patient HM started this idea when he sat down to eat a second meal immediately after consuming …show more content…
the first because he had forgotten he already had eaten. This experiment is trying to show that snacking while watching TV, in opposition to snacking while not watching TV, can lead us to eat more later on. They want to prove it is because the TV affects our memory of how much we snacked earlier. In experiment one they take thirty-two female women that are not dieting and not diabetic with a BMI between 18 and 25 and let them spend 20 minutes eating as much snack food as they want.
They are given chocolate balls, pringles, coca cola, and orange juice. Half of these ladies did it watching a 20 minute TV episode and the other half did it sitting quietly. Afterwards the remains were taken and measured; both groups consumed around the same amount of snacks. Around one hour later they sat the ladies down to eat lunch which would include: sandwiches, biscuits, crackers and dip. They found the result they were looking for when the women who had watched TV earlier while snacking ate more of this meal than the ladies who had earlier snacked without the TV. The result was finale when the TV group also couldn’t remember how much they had snacked on during the time they watched the …show more content…
TV.
In experiment two the experiment was very similar to experiment one except that they wanted to see if the type of TV show would affect anything. This time they had the ladies watch different types of shows- funny, sad, and boring. The results were very similar to the first experiment and they learned that the type of TV show made no difference to the food they consumed.
It was confirmed that when normal weight non-dieting females snack while watching TV, they later consume more food on a TV free meal than participants who snacked without TV. Also, participants who watched TV while snacking were less accurate in remembering the amount of snack food they had consumed.
Something that I thought was interesting about this experiment is that it doesn’t work on men.
In the journal it is mentioned that men take a different approach to this and try to eat as much food as possible, yet in the beginning the amnesiac patient HM that Hebben reported was a male.
I didn’t like that the women fasted before they came to do the experiment. It is not a real life situation. Most of the time when I’m snacking in front of the TV I might have already eaten before that or I am just about to eat. Also If I knew that this experiment was all about food – I do not know if I would have eaten what I normally do. I might have been embarrassed and not given correct information. There is no way to make this experiment work 100% but that is how it is with most experiments.
They conclude ”Our data suggest that TV probably exerts some as yet unspecified effect on participants’ ability to recall earlier bouts of food consumption, leading to over consumption on a later TV free test meal. As TV viewing is associated with eating in so many different ways and as over consumption of food is a major problem in most industrialized nations, it would seem important to study exactly how this occurs.
“
Obesity is a HUGE problem in our country and I think that this could possibly have something to do with it. Even small children are watching TV now with a bag of chips in one hand and a soda in the other. Our nation is constantly getting fatter. Now when I sit in front of the TV I will think about what I’m eating and apply what I know to help me consume the right amount of food.
Have you ever sat in front of the TV devouring tons of snacks and not even paid attention to how much you had already eaten? That is why this essay sparked my attention! I constantly find myself in front of the TV craving snacks and chomping away, not even thinking about how much I am eating. Dolly Mittal, Richard J. Stevenson, Megan J. Oaten, and Laurie A. Miller conducted an experiment to find out if our memory is a factor for what we’ve already eaten. One amnesiac patient HM started this idea when he sat down to eat a second meal immediately after consuming …show more content…
the first because he had forgotten he already had eaten. This experiment is trying to show that snacking while watching TV, in opposition to snacking while not watching TV, can lead us to eat more later on. They want to prove it is because the TV affects our memory of how much we snacked earlier. In experiment one they take thirty-two female women that are not dieting and not diabetic with a BMI between 18 and 25 and let them spend 20 minutes eating as much snack food as they want.
They are given chocolate balls, pringles, coca cola, and orange juice. Half of these ladies did it watching a 20 minute TV episode and the other half did it sitting quietly. Afterwards the remains were taken and measured; both groups consumed around the same amount of snacks. Around one hour later they sat the ladies down to eat lunch which would include: sandwiches, biscuits, crackers and dip. They found the result they were looking for when the women who had watched TV earlier while snacking ate more of this meal than the ladies who had earlier snacked without the TV. The result was finale when the TV group also couldn’t remember how much they had snacked on during the time they watched the …show more content…
TV.
In experiment two the experiment was very similar to experiment one except that they wanted to see if the type of TV show would affect anything. This time they had the ladies watch different types of shows- funny, sad, and boring. The results were very similar to the first experiment and they learned that the type of TV show made no difference to the food they consumed.
It was confirmed that when normal weight non-dieting females snack while watching TV, they later consume more food on a TV free meal than participants who snacked without TV. Also, participants who watched TV while snacking were less accurate in remembering the amount of snack food they had consumed.
Something that I thought was interesting about this experiment is that it doesn’t work on men.
In the journal it is mentioned that men take a different approach to this and try to eat as much food as possible, yet in the beginning the amnesiac patient HM that Hebben reported was a male.
I didn’t like that the women fasted before they came to do the experiment. It is not a real life situation. Most of the time when I’m snacking in front of the TV I might have already eaten before that or I am just about to eat. Also If I knew that this experiment was all about food – I do not know if I would have eaten what I normally do. I might have been embarrassed and not given correct information. There is no way to make this experiment work 100% but that is how it is with most experiments.
They conclude ”Our data suggest that TV probably exerts some as yet unspecified effect on participants’ ability to recall earlier bouts of food consumption, leading to over consumption on a later TV free test meal. As TV viewing is associated with eating in so many different ways and as over consumption of food is a major problem in most industrialized nations, it would seem important to study exactly how this occurs.
“
Obesity is a HUGE problem in our country and I think that this could possibly have something to do with it. Even small children are watching TV now with a bag of chips in one hand and a soda in the other. Our nation is constantly getting fatter. Now when I sit in front of the TV I will think about what I’m eating and apply what I know to help me consume the right amount of food.