You want to “feel good.” It’s nice to have those moments of nostalgia. The sense of being back “home.”
And indeed, those elements combined in every day life seem to be a substantial cause of our problem with being the most overweight (read that as FAT) country on the planet.
Why do people eat what they eat? In addition to a well-documented craving for sweet foods and salty foods, people eat foods that trigger happy past associations.
Brian Wansink classifies such foods as comfort foods. The University of Illinois marketing professor who runs the UI Food and Brand Lab defines a comfort food as “a specific food consumed under a specific situation to obtain psychological comfort.” To understand why people become attached to certain foods, Wansink and his students interviewed consumers selected randomly around the country.
“We asked them what their favorite foods were as well as open-ended questions about how those items became comfort foods,” Wansink said. What surprised the UI researcher was that nearly 40 percent of the foods cited as bringing comfort to the eater did not fall into the expected category of “taste good” processed snack foods.
Rather, people frequently mentioned mostly homemade “healthy” foods such as soup, main dishes and even vegetables. “The popularity of these less advertised and less indulgent foods lends credibility to the notion that comfort foods are distinct from ‘taste good’ foods,” Wansink noted.
Did comfort foods differ by gender? In a survey of 1,005 consumers, Wansink found that men and women both selected ice cream as their favorite comfort food, but then differed strikingly, with women naming chocolate and cookies as their second and third-favorite choices, and men naming soup and pizza or pasta. “With the exception of ice cream, males generally claim they received more comfort from hot meals and from main meals than do females,” he reported.
Comfort foods also differed by age, with people 18 to 34 preferring ice cream and cookies, those aged 35 to 54 preferring soup and pizza or pasta, and those older than 55 naming soup and mashed potatoes.
Although people listed a number of reasons why certain foods became comfort goods, two reasons stood out – past associations and personality identification.
Wansink said that people cognitively connected past associations between foods and people (“My father loved green bean casserole”) or events important in their lives (“My mom always gave me soup when I was not feeling well”). Some foods came to be associated with feelings a person wanted to recapture (“We always got ice cream after we won baseball games as a kid”) and a few involved a recollection of the specific taste or smell of a food. “In all instances,” Wansink said, “the feelings evoked were underlying factors in the drive toward consumption.”
Comfort-food status also was accorded to products seen as consistent with a person’s self-image. Wansink and his students interviewed 63 fans of Oh Henry! candy bars, which has a small market share.
“Devoted consumers of Oh Henry! characterize the candy bar as iconoclastic, unique and stylish in a ‘think different’ sort of way. In a follow-up survey, the respondents rated themselves as being iconoclastic, unique and stylish in a ‘think different’ sort of way,” Wansink said.
Dateline presented an objective look at the different weight loss methods available to the public today. It was very interesting how hypnosis was demonstrated to be effective and fast. Hypnosis is painlessm, and effective in programming the mind to feel good and desire naturally good foods and healthy diet and lifestyle.
You can utilize the powers of hypnosis and a healthy active lifestyle. Newly released:
Lose Weight with Hypnosis: The Home Based Program on CD
by Kevin Hogan, Psy.D.
Even if you’ve never been able to lose weight before you are more than likely to now. You already know that weight loss is an elusive goal. Now find out what you can do to lose 20 pounds and three inches in approximately 9 weeks.
Goals, will power, a fad diet and a positive mental attitude are not enough to take inches off. They never work and they never will.
This home based program is based upon the actual RESULTS of over 2000 people in four states who have utilized this program. (All original research is included in this program!)
You are going to receive six CD’s. The first two CD’s show you exactly how to work the program and chart your progress. The final four CD’s are the high powered self hypnosis CD’s that will help you realize your outcome. This is not your typical hypnosis for weight loss program. This program is based on actual results from people just like you …and me. Yes I was once in 42’s…not anymore. 36’s are back and have been for six years.
This program will take you through the process of re-programming your mind so you can create new stimulus responses to food, hunger urges, locations and unconscious reasons you eat. The program addresses the CORE REASONS that weight is staying on the body and it will not change until the TWO key mental programs start running differently.
Now you can begin to feel better as you realize that your weight will begin to fade away…giving yourself a new sense of pride and a slimmer look. This program was developed and scientifically researched by the author. The median weight loss for participants at 8 weeks is 19 pounds!!! Now it’s your turn.
Over 2000+ participants have benefited from this program.
Learn more about Hypnosis for Weight Loss or to order
