Photo: flickr/Ian Sane
It's well known that you eat more in general when with other people. But how can the weight of your eating companions affect how much you eat? In this study, the researchers hired a professional actress to put on an overweight prosthesis (AKA a "fatsuit") and then serve herself some food in front of a group of study participants. They then had the participants serve themselves some food (pasta or salad). It turns out that when the actress took food while wearing the fatsuit , the participants served and ate more unhealthy food (pasta) than when she was "slimmer" (without the suit). Not only that, but when the "fat" actress served herself a large portion of salad, the participants ate less salad. The authors hypothesize that this effect is due to the subjects being less reminded of their health goals when they are around overweight people. Once ...
