How to Avoid Overeating During the Big Game?

Hungry for a Super Bowl victory? The Super Buffet table may end of having the last laugh. The only thing I love more than the commercials is the food.

The Super Bowl ranks #1 in terms of home parties (it even beats New Year’s Eve), and it ranks #2 in food consumption, according to Mindless Eating (p. 38). In 2004, Super Bowl partiers ate 4,000 tons of popcorn, 14,000 tons of chips and an estimated 3,200,000 pizzas.

In a cute study we have coming out next month in the psychology journal “Perceptual and Motor Skills” (cool journal, boring name), we show even the food you see when you watch the Super Bowl can lead you to ‘Blimp’ out.

In a Champaign, IL sports bar, a couple of years ago, we treated 53 Super Bowl partiers to all-you-can-eat chicken wings buffet. The party was actually a study, and during the game waitresses bussed the chicken bones from halfof the tables, or they let them pile up on people’s plates.

Sports fans eating off of clean plates ate 43% more chicken wings than those whose bones stayed on their plates. These left-overs served as boney reminders of how much they had eaten. This kept them from mindlessly eating more.

In general, it is important to have some idea of how much you have eaten. Serve yourself onto a plate, and then stop when the plate is empty. Again, dish it out, eat it slowly, and stop.