Health

Eating and Exercise Messages: A Costly Mix?

March 27, 2009
By J White

Do you feel like eating more after seeing fitness ads? If you do, you’re not alone. Research suggests that campaigns that promote exercise may have the unintended consequence of making you eat more.

In the journal Obesity, a group of college students were asked to judge some posters featured in an exercise campaign. On another occasion, they were also asked to judge a group of similar looking posters, but this time there was no mention of exercise.

In both instances, they were given raisins afterward to taste and rate. When looking at the exercise posters, the students ate an average of 18 calories, but only 12 calories after looking at the posters that did not mention exercise.

To replicate their findings, a second test with a group of different students participated in a computerized test of hand-eye coordination. They were randomly assigned to two groups. One group was exposed to action words typically used in exercise advertising, words like “active” and “go”.

A control group was exposed to neutral words like “pear” or “moon”. The words for both group were presented in a way that ensured lack of conscious awareness. This time they were given bowls of M&Ms, raisins and peanuts. However, the results were similar. Those who heard action words ate more food.

So what does all this mean. According to the author of the study, exercise messages can exert an inadvertent effect on food intake, which could potentially jeopardize your weight loss.

This implies that just looking at or even reading material related to exercise may promote weight gain. If that is the case, perhaps you shouldn’t be reading this or any article on exercise.

But let’s hope this is not the case. Because given the choice between advising someone on how to lose weight and saying nothing, I vote for advice. Why? Because the price of staying quiet is to high a cost, as your life may depend upon it.

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