A Cluttered Kitchen Can Nudge Us To Overeat, Study Finds

NPR:

Hunger is not the only reason we eat sweets.

Often we eat as a way to celebrate, or sometimes we reach for food when we’re sad or bored.

And a study published this month in the journal Environment and Behavior points to another factor that can nudge us to eat: clutter.

“The notion that places — such as cluttered offices or disorganized homes — can be modified to help us control our food intake is becoming an important solution in helping us become more slim by design,” report Brian Wansink of Cornell University and his colleagues in their write-up of the study.

…

So, how might these findings translate to a messy desk? After all, many of us do a lot of snacking at the office.

“This study makes a lot of connections to workplace environments,” Kathleen Vohs, a psychologist at the University of Minnesota, who has studied how messy desks or rooms can influence behavior, told us.

Read the whole story: NPR