How to enjoy your food more

The Boston Globe:

Social psychologists often seem like killjoys when it comes to studying how people eat. A primary concern is overeating, so their main objective is frequently to try to identify the psychological levers that can be pulled to help people to eat less. This research has produced a number of pieces of now-familiar advice: Don’t eat while watching television (you lose track of how much you’ve consumed); serve food on small plates with small utensils to create the illusion of plenty.

These days, however, food is a fetish, and some social psychologists have joined the fun. Instead of concentrating solely on how to limit intake, they’ve come up with a range of strategies intended to help people get more enjoyment out of their food. I was interested in learning more about how to make a weekday dinner a more pleasurable experience, so I called Carey Morewedge, a social psychologist at Boston University who studies the hedonics, or pleasure dimensions, of experiences like eating, watching television, and going on vacation.

Read the whole story: The Boston Globe