Just Pretend Those Carrots Are Cheese Fries

The problem with your diet is not that you’ve been eating the wrong food, but rather you’ve been thinking about your food all wrong. According to Alia Crum, a clinical psychology researcher at Yale University, our mind’s opinion of food labeled or thought of to be “diet” or “low fat” can actually affect our body’s physiological response after eating it, which changes our metabolism. Her sneaky research team told 46 volunteers that they were getting two milkshakes to drink. In the first test, they were told they were sampling a “health” shake that had no fat, no added sugar and a skinny 140 calories. At a separate test, the same group were told they were rewarded with an “indulgent” shake weighing in at a guilt-inducing 620 calories and full of fat. The trick was that in each test, the milkshakes were actually identical with each having 360 calories. Only the description and labelling of the shakes were different. At this point, Crum and her less than honest ...