Changing Setting for Better Eating
Alex Ripley
English 1A: Critical Thinking and Writing I
Theresa Conefrey
Thursday, December 5, 2013
There are many factors that influence a person’s eating habits. Possibly the most influential is the setting that a person consumes their food in. My transition into college life has proven to be an example of this influence. Having grown up in a healthy lifestyle, I recognize that my eating habits have become much worse since I have arrived at college. This change in setting (from Alaska to Santa Clara) has greatly impacted my food choices, as well as the habits that accompany those choices. If setting can affect a person’s eating lifestyle, a person should therefore be able to change their setting if they are looking for healthier eating. Although it may take some effort, a person can improve their eating habits and food choices through making changes to the setting in which they eat in.
Before addressing these changes, it must be shown that setting truly has an impact on eating habits. This impact can best be observed through analyzing the three traits of setting: time, location, and mood/atmosphere. Through examining these three traits individually, it can be seen that they each have their own impact on a person’s food choices. The first trait, time, can be broken into two parts: the time of day, and the time of year. The first (time of day) deals with the fact that eating habits typically vary between different points in a day. Depending on whether it is morning or evening, a person and their food choices are affected by the given time. For instance, people tend to eat unhealthier when it is night. According to Sarah Robertson (2002) of Prevention, studies have shown that people are more likely to eat more when there is less light. The dimmer light makes a person more thoughtless when searching for food, and thus less likely to make a food decision based on the level of healthiness. A person’s food choices are not only affected by the time of day, they are also influenced by the time of year. From month to month, people’s eating habits often change along with the different seasons. Similar to the claim of late-night binging, studies have shown that people tend to eat more during the winter season. According to Allison Aubrey (2011) of NPR, caloric intake tends to increase as the days grow darker. She points to a study done at the University of Georgia in 1991, showing that consumers took in an extra 200 calories per day once the sun began to set earlier. This indicates that the time of year has an effect on eating habits, along with the time of day.
The second trait of setting is location, and it also has an impact on eating habits. Location can be broken down into two situations: at home versus away, and sit-down versus on-the-go. In regards to the first, a person’s eating habits are greatly affected by whether they are in their home or in a restaurant. According to Brian Wansink (2010) of Mindless Eating, a restaurant’s atmosphere can lead to overeating because the “lights will be low, the music soft, the colors muted”, and this will put a person into a state of relaxation. With this relaxed atmosphere, people will often spend more time at the table, and thus buy and consume more food. It can be seen that a person’s food choices are affected by whether they are at home or away, but there are also noticeable differences between sit-down and on-the-go eating. In a given situation, people tend to eat unhealthier when in a hurry. This is often due to the convenience of prepackaged snacks, as well as to the fact that healthy food often takes longer to prepare. If a person is running late for work, they may not have the time to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but they do have the time to grab a bag of chips before leaving. This lack of time causes people to often eat unhealthy when on the go, and healthier when allotted more time to sit down and eat.
The final trait of setting is the mood/atmosphere, which also has an effect on a person’s food habits. In regards to mood, a person’s temporary feelings can influence them to do many things. This includes influencing them to eat certain foods. For instance, Allison Tannis (2011) of Alive: Canada's Natural Health & Wellness Magazine stated that people often eat in an attempt to relieve stress. She said, “Food may suppress negative emotions such as stress, sadness, boredom, or loneliness—but only temporarily”. When this temporary suppression of negative emotions wears off, the person will eat more, attempting to further suppress these emotions. Thus, it can be seen that emotions can affect a given person’s eating habits. Along with mood, a person’s surrounding atmosphere can also affect their food choices. This atmosphere often involves the people that are in a given setting. If a person is with a group of friends, their eating habits will often be affected by what kind of group they are with. According to Wansink, a person is influenced to eat more like the people they are eating with. For instance, if a person is with a group of friends who order extra baskets of fries, that person may be influenced to buy an extra order as well. Similarly, a person may be influenced to order salad if all his friends are ordering salads for their meals. This shows that a person’s surroundings affect their food choices, along with mood having an influence as well.
Addressing the three traits of setting, it can be seen that setting has an obvious influence on eating habits and food choices. With this influence in mind, a person should be able to address their current setting, and then change it in a way to provide a healthier eating lifestyle. But is this realistic? Skeptics may claim that people are naturally habitual, and it would be too difficult to change their setting due to being stuck in a typical routine. Others may state that a person cannot simply “change their setting”, because setting is a seemingly fixed, unchangeable situation. These views state that a change in setting may be impossible, or simply too much effort. But in reality, it does not require a lot of effort to provide a setting change; it simply requires the right kind of effort. In order for a person to change their setting, they simply need to address the three traits that were mentioned earlier. Through breaking setting down into its traits, it can be dealt with in individual parts, thus allowing the consumer to easily change these parts to improve their eating habits.
The first trait of setting (time) can be addressed through its common issues. It was stated that the time of day affects eating habits, and that the negative eating habits frequently arise at night. These late-night binges often occur when a person does not eat enough during the day, leading them to “let loose” at night when they make contact with food. This problem can be dealt with in a fairly simple way. These nighttime splurges can be avoided through the simple effort of eating consistently throughout the day. According to Jodi Augustine (2012) of Group Health Research Institute, it is beneficial to eat four to six smaller meals a day, rather than two or three larger meals a day. She claims that eating small meals will make it less likely a person becomes hungry and overeats at their next meal. This technique of eating consistently can also be beneficial when dealing with seasonal eating tendencies. If a person eats consistently throughout the day, they will be less hungry when the “shroud of darkness” comes on a given winter day. The days are shorter, but a person will be less likely to overindulge in the darkness because they are not extremely hungry. This consistent eating technique is just one way that a person could change the factor of time in their setting to provide better eating habits.
The second factor of setting (location) can also be adjusted to allow a person to improve their eating habits. As discussed before, people often eat more when they are away from home. In restaurants, a person has the tendency to order more, be served more, and therefore eat more. Often, these visits to restaurants and eateries arise from a person’s tendency to be habitual. According to Wansink, many people are stuck in an eating routine, and they over consume because that is what they always have done. For instance, a person may drive by the same McDonalds every day, ordering a Big Mac because that is what they always have done after work. This will provide a great amount of additional calories per day, and ultimately result in weight gain as this habit continues. So, in order to improve eating habits, a person must break these habits of visiting the same location consistently. This does not mean that a person needs to avoid eating out. Rather, they must be careful to not fall into a pattern that could be considered unhealthy. It may be difficult to break a habit, but it can be done. In Mindless Eating, Wansink suggested that a person could even try taking a different driving route from normal. With a different route, the consumer does not drive past the spot he always has, thus avoiding the option of stopping to eat. As said before, location can also be in regards to whether the eating is sit-down or on-the-go. It can be observed that people eat unhealthier when on the go, and there is a quick fix to this issue. The solution lies in quick, healthy foods. People often eat unhealthier when in a hurry because quick foods are typically prepackaged snacks with little nutritional value. But if a person looks enough, they can fill their house with foods that are both quick and healthy. With fast, nutritious foods, a person will be more likely to eat better when in a rush, thus avoiding the conflict of eating bad when on the go. Purchasing quick, healthy foods and avoiding habitual food-stops are two of the ways that a person can change their locational setting to improve their eating habits.
The third factor of setting that can be adjusted is mood/atmosphere. As stated before, stress can cause a person to eat too much. Wansink called this problem “emotional eating”, stating that emotional eating often occurs when a person is not even hungry. If this is the issue, the best way to deal with emotional eating is by finding other things to do besides mindless eating. Rather than eating as a default hobby, it is more beneficial to do some other activity, such as knitting hats, or shooting hoops. If a person develops a new habit, they can resort to this activity in emotional situations, rather than to emotional eating. This is an example of adjusting the factor of mood in setting, but atmosphere can be adjusted as well. As stated before, atmosphere is often affected by the kind of people that a person is with. Therefore, a person can eat healthier by simply eating with people who eat healthy. By eating with people who eat salads and vegetables, as opposed to burgers and chicken wings, a person will naturally choose healthier options. If eating with healthier people is not possible, a person should at least be cognizant of the influence that surrounding people have on them. If a person keeps this influence in mind, they may be able to affect other people to eat healthy, rather than other people affecting them to eat unhealthy. By taking control of atmosphere and mood in a given setting, a person can affect their eating habits in a positive manner.
Setting has a prominent influence on a person’s eating habits and food choices. This influence is due to its three main factors: time, location, and mood/atmosphere. Rather than addressing setting as a whole, a person can address these three factors and make changes to them individually. Through making positive changes to these individual factors, a person can ultimately improve their eating habits and food choices in the end.
References
Aubrey, A. (2011, Dec. 19). Winter Munchies: Do We Eat More In Colder Months? Retrieved
from http://www.npr.org/2011/12/19/143938954/winter-munchies-do-we-eat-
more-in-colder-months
Augustine, J. (2012, Feb. 24). What to Eat, How Much, and When. Retrieved from
Robertson, S. (2002). Shut Down Late-Night Binges. Prevention, 54(6), 81.
Tannis, A. (2011). Curb Emotional eating Embrace a whole food diet. Alive: Canada’s
Natural Health & Wellness Magazine, (349), 119-123.
Wansink, B. (2010). Mindless Eating. New York City, New York: Bantam Books.