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[Dalek]

Junk food cravings are triggered by the mere thought of being low class

It’s well established that people with low economic status are the hardest hit by the current obesity pandemic, as well as related health problems such as diabetes. Poor healthcare, stress, unhealthy lifestyles, and a cornucopia of cheap junk food are all thought to play a role. But a new study suggests there’s a subconscious component, too.

When researchers merely prompted study volunteers to consider themselves low-class, they were more likely to prefer, choose, and eat larger amounts of food, as well as higher-calorie foods. The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, echo what’s been seen in a variety of animals—from birds and rodents to nonhuman primates. Thus, the authors speculate that the mental glitch may be an evolutionary holdover intended to boost survival by compensating for a lack of social and material resources.

More important for humans, the findings suggest that we may not be able to tackle obesity by just improving access to healthier foods and promoting exercise.

For the study, psychology researchers at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore recruited nearly 500 healthy participants for a series of four experiments. In the first, the team had 101 participants complete a task in which they were shown a ladder with ten rungs and told to select which rung they were on relative to either a wealthy, well-educated, powerful person or a poor, uneducated, unimportant person. Participants were randomly assigned to the two comparisons. In keeping with past studies, they ranked their social status lower in the former scenario and higher in the latter.

Next, the participants got to pick foods from a hypothetical buffet. Taking into account things like each participants’ normal eating pattern, hunger, and gender, the researchers found that those who ranked their social status lower chose more food and more high-calorie foods than those that ranked themselves as having a higher social status.

In the second experiment, researchers gave 167 participants the same socioeconomic ranking task, then asked them to match high calorie foods (pizza, hamburgers, fried chicken) and low calories foods (vegetables and fruits) with either pleasant or unpleasant descriptors, such as tasty or nasty. Again, those who landed lower on the ladder were more apt to prefer the high-calorie foods.

“These findings suggest that mindsets of deprivation and low social standing may be critically linked to obesity risk via increased intake of calories,” the authors conclude. As such, the subjective experience of low social standing may be another barrier to improving health.

More at the link, including some more experiments they did.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

In today's latest study from the Maximegalon Institute of Slowly and Painfully Working Out the Surprisingly Obvious, it turns out that people who are poor and don't know where their next meal is coming from or when it's coming tend to instinctively pick foods which increase their immediate chances of survival.

 

[off duty ninja]

This is of course anecdotal but I have found a distinct shift in my eating habits when our cupboards are bare due to low budget. I tend to binge and gorge myself MORE when I know that there isn't much to eat in the house. I will find the one or two things that are there that I like and just devour them.

I learned this about myself while working on losing weight. I always think "This oughta be easy since we don't have shit to eat!" but it always ends up being when my diet goes to shit too. I always thought it had to do with a subconscious, irrational fear of starving. Maybe so...

 

[ezrarh]

Maybe if we cut funding for these studies pointing out the obvious and funnel it towards other stuff, we'd have less poor people.

 

[superNESjoe]

I got a pizza ad at the bottom of this page

 

[Volimar]

I got a pizza ad at the bottom of this page

I'd murder a pizza right now.

 

[Epsilon-delta]

This is of course anecdotal but I have found a distinct shift in my eating habits when our cupboards are bare due to low budget. I tend to binge and gorge myself MORE when I know that there isn't much to eat in the house. I will find the one or two things that are there that I like and just devour them.

I learned this about myself while working on losing weight. I always think "This oughta be easy since we don't have shit to eat!" but it always ends up being when my diet goes to shit too. I always thought it had to do with a subconscious, irrational fear of starving. Maybe so...

This cuts me deep because I can relate to it when I was growing up.

 

[Gordon Shumway]

Awe SNAP..

 

[Guevara]

Class struggle meals

 

[ghostwritingduck]

Maybe if we cut funding for these studies pointing out the obvious and funnel it towards other stuff, we'd have less poor people.

1. If you don't scientifically test things that seem obvious, people will go around believing lots of wrong things because they seem obvious.

2. I don't find the results to this obvious. Healthy foods frequently cost more and are harder to find in city areas with poverty which provides plenty of explanation. This result is suggesting that feeling poor cause people to desire unhealthier food

 

[ChimpBottle]

So the title of this thread suggests that if you think about your lacking financial state you will begin to crave junk food, which I thought was kind of weird and interesting.

But all the article says is that poor people tend to gravitate to junk food more than wealthy people, which we already knew.

 

[B-Dex]

They need to study the 30 dollar Italian meal now.

 

[Majora]

I don't think it's simply an evolutionary thing to do with storing up calories. I think there is a strong correlation between being poor/lower class and eating unhealthier food because it is one of the few cheap pleasures you can afford. Kind of like 'fuck it, I'm poor and my job is shit and life is a struggle but at least I can get some pleasure out of this cheap but tasty food.'

I posted this George Orwell quote in the food stamp thread already today but I think it's relevant here as well. Plus it's an ace quote. The guy had such a great understanding of human nature.

Would it not be better if they spent more money on wholesome things like oranges and wholemeal bread or if they even, like the writer of the letter to the New Statesman, saved on fuel and ate their carrots raw? Yes, it would, but the point is that no ordinary human being is ever going to do such a thing. The ordinary human being would sooner starve than live on brown bread and raw carrots. And the peculiar evil is this, that the less money you have, the less inclined you feel to spend it on wholesome food. A millionaire may enjoy breakfasting off orange juice and Ryvita biscuits; an unemployed man doesn't. Here the tendency of which I spoke at the end of the last chapter comes into play. When you are unemployed, which is to say when you are underfed, harassed, bored, and miserable, you don't want to eat dull wholesome food. You want something a little bit 'tasty'. There is always some cheaply pleasant thing to tempt you.