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• People Can Be Tricked Into Eating Lots of ‘Healthy’ Foods
• Sites We Like
• Why You Keep Losing at Slot Machines

People Can Be Tricked Into Eating Lots of ‘Healthy’ Foods Posted: 05 Jul 2013 08:00 AM PDT People will choose larger portions of food if they are labeled as being “healthier,” even if they have the same number of calories, according to a new study. “People think (healthier food) is lower in calories,” said Pierre Chandon, a marketing professor at the INSEAD Social Science Research Center in France, and they “tend to consume more of it.” That misconception can lead to people eating larger portion sizes of so-called healthy foods, and therefore more calories. One reason why people might overeat healthier foods is because they feel less guilt when they choose a healthier option. “Foods are marketed as being healthier for a reason, because food producers believe, and they correctly believe, that those labels will influence us to eat their products and perhaps eat more of their products,” said Dr. Cliodhna Foley Nolan the director of Human Health and Nutrition at Safefood, a government agency in Ireland. Safefood commissioned the study, led by Barbara Livingstone, a professor at the University of Ulster. Foley Nolan said that the portion sizes of food have become larger over the years, and Safefood wanted to see whether health and nutrition claims had any influence. The researchers asked 186 adults to assess the appropriate portion sizes of foods. Given a bowl of coleslaw, the participants served themselves more of the coleslaw labeled “healthier” than the coleslaw labeled “standard.” For instance, obese men served themselves 103 grams of healthy coleslaw and 86 grams of standard coleslaw. In reality, the healthy-labeled coleslaw had just as many calories—941 kilojoules (or 224 calories) for every 100 grams—as the “standard” coleslaw, which had 937 kilojoules (or 223 calories). Additionally, people tended to underestimate how many calories were in a serving for the “healthier” coleslaw. The participants most often thought the “healthier” coleslaw contained 477 kilojoules, or 113 calories. In contrast, they were not far off in estimating the calories in the “standard” coleslaw. 'A CERTAIN LICENSE TO OVEREAT’ Chandon, who was not part of this study, said people tend to stereotype food that might be healthy in one aspect, say, lower in fat, as being healthy in every dimension. But in fact, food labeled as being healthy is not always lower in calories. He said one reason why people might overeat healthier foods is because they feel less guilt when they choose a healthier option. “We think that these kinds of marketing means … of labeling things as being healthier, that it gives us a certain license to overeat and it can be dangerous” with regard to weight gain, Foley Nolan told Reuters Health. She said the findings will be useful in developing nutrition policies and education campaigns to help people make healthy food choices. Foley Nolan recommended that people bulk up on fruit and vegetables, rather than processed foods, even if they are labeled as healthy. Chandon added that shoppers should also look at nutrition labels and calorie content. “Just pay attention to those (health) claims and don’t generalize or stereotype on one (type of) nutritional information,” he said.

Sites We Like Posted: 05 Jul 2013 06:00 AM PDT CERTAINTYOFHOPELESSNESS.COM A 21st-century update of Swiftian political pamphlets of yore, this PDF offers a mix of practical and absurd options that America's growing legion of deeply indebted students might consider using to convince bankruptcy courts they can't repay their debts. –Michael Fitzgerald, associate editor MADINAMERICA.COM Critiques, analyses, and personal experiences of psychiatric care in the United States and worldwide, by scientists, activists, journalists, and patients. Thoughtful discourse in an area where polarized positions are the norm. –Ethan Watters, contributing editor SOCIAL SCIENCE BITES PODCAST Forgive the name—they're British. (And they're supported, like this magazine, by SAGE Publications.) Short, layperson-friendly interviews with top researchers on the latest findings on violence, childbirth, economic inequality, and more. –Vince Beiser, articles editor HARRYSHEARER.COM He's no longer on the air in his hometown of Los Angeles. But you can still listen to the amusingly acerbic (and deeply sourced) sociopolitical musings of Harry Shearer via his podcast of Le Show, available free on his website. –Tom Jacobs, staff writer

Why You Keep Losing at Slot Machines Posted: 05 Jul 2013 04:00 AM PDT Does this casino scenario sound familiar? You're pumping money into a slot machine, very much enjoying the sense that you're winning more often than you're losing. Your excitement mounts—right up until that startling, disheartening moment when your money runs out. How did you misjudge things so badly? It turns out you can't put all the blame on those complimentary cocktails. Newly published research suggests at least part of the answer involves the slot machine's music and sound effects. It seems all those bells and whistles simultaneously perform two functions casino magnates love: They heighten players' emotional arousal, even as they incite them to "significantly overestimate the number of times they won." On modern slot machines, where gamblers wager simultaneously on several lines, success on any one of those lines will produce the music and sound effects associated with a win. That's the conclusion of a research team led by psychologist Mike Dixon of the University of Waterloo, who has extensively studied the psychology of gambling. The researchers report two groups of gamblers experienced less pleasure playing silent slot machines. But they were also better judges of how well they were doing. Writing in the Journal of Gambling Studies, the researchers describe a phenomenon they call "losses disguised as wins." On modern slot machines, where gamblers wager simultaneously on several lines, success on any one of those lines will produce the music and sound effects associated with a win. That holds true even if you lost on all of the other lines, resulting in a net loss on that particular wager. This leaves gamblers with the impression they're winning (and the incentive to play more), even when they are, in fact, losing money. To determine if the music and sound effects exacerbated this costly misconception, the researchers tested 96 regular slot machine players (a bit over half of them male). Most were recruited at the entrance of an Ontario slots venue; the experiment took place in a meeting room upstairs from the slots floor. Others were recruited online and tested at a university laboratory. All of the participants played a simulated slot machine game, designed to look and sound like the actual machines, while electrodes attached to their skin measured changes in skin conductance (a good signal of emotional arousal). After playing a block of spins with sound, and one without sound, they were asked to estimate the number of times they won more than they wagered. "The vast majority of players that were tested preferred the playing session where wins were accompanied by sound," the researchers report. Skin conductance levels confirmed that the music and sound effects made the experience more exciting. They estimated winning an average of 33 times when the sound was turned off, and 36 times when it was turned on. In fact, they won only 28 times. This suggests that (a) the multi-line game leads to the false impression of winning, and (b) the music and sound effects exacerbate this misconception, raising the rate of overestimation from 15 percent to 24 percent. So losses are often masked as wins, and sound effects and music "may be an integral component to the disguise," Dixon and his colleagues conclude. This, they add, helps explain the "persistence that some players experience when playing slot machines." Indeed, there are few things more enticing than the sound of winning money—even when it's an illusion.

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