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Dieting individuals who prefer
to eat their meals in dim light may be more likely to overeat.
If you diet, take the
lighting conditions where you eat seriously. You're
more likely to adhere to the diet if the lighting is bright. Eating in
dimmer lighting, even if only slightly dimmer, may increase your risk
of lapsing.
To investigate whether dim
light was linked to bulimic behavior in dieters, investigators performed
two studies of 245 and 156 college undergraduates, respectively. About
one in five students in each study group was overweight.
Results from the two studies
indicate that among the students who were greatly concerned about their
weight and body shape -- who, for example, admitted to being "preoccupied
with the desire to be thinner" -- those who preferred dimmer light
while eating were more likely to think about and engage in binge eating
than their peers.
However, no significant correlation
between light preference and overeating was found among individuals who
said they were less concerned about their weight and body shape.
Sometimes the disinhibiting
effects of dim lighting help us be how we want to be. But dimmer lighting
also has a dark side: When we want to inhibit our impulses because they're
destructive (e.g., the impulse to eat even though you're not hungry),
dimmer light loosens us from our healthy inhibitions and 'frees' us from
the very constraints that we are deliberately seeking.
The findings remained true
even after researchers took into consideration the participants' possible
depression and paranoia, both of which were also associated with bulimia
symptoms and preferred light while eating.
Among students in the second
study who scored high in dietary restraint, those who preferred dimmer
eating light were again more likely to think about and engage in binge
eating than were their peers.
Finally, researchers analyzed
the lighting preferences of 12 students who scored beyond the cutoff point
for diagnosed bulimia and found that they preferred to eat in dimmer light
than did their nonbulimic peers.
These study results imply that
if you want
to lose weight and keep off the pounds, then you should make sure that
you keep the dining area bright -- i.e., turn
on all the lights, use brighter bulbs, open the curtains or window shades,
rearrange lamps so that they more brightly illuminate the eater, or even
move to a more brighter lit room for eating.
In light of these findings,
New Year's resolutions to lose weight may be largely unsuccessful not
because of each individual's inability to improve themselves, but because
"the naturally low lighting level makes dieting success more difficult
in January than at any other time of the year.
For success at dieting, it
would be wiser for people to have 'spring resolutions' or 'summer resolutions'
rather than the New Year's resolutions of January.
The present study builds on
earlier research that indicated that "night people" -- those
who prefer to stay up late and sleep in -- may be at greater risk of binge
eating than morning people.
The take home point?
Early to bed, early to rise,
makes a person eat more sensibly.
Personality and Individual
Differences January 2002
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