韩国《新任女教师》:垃圾食品习惯：为什么我们会在电影院不停地吃爆米花，即使已经不新鲜了

对于外卖爱好者来说这是个令人惊讶的消息，但科学家发现人们不停地吃着垃圾食品仅仅是因为其口感。

Instead they found we are such creatures of habit that once we have associated a place with a certain kind of food, like popcorn at the cinema, we will keep eating it - even if it's stale.

相反，科学家发现我们人类有着这样习惯，一旦我们适应了将某种特定食品与某类环境联系起来后，比如在电影院吃爆米花，那么即使爆米花已经不再新了，我们也会一直不停地吃着它。

Researchers from the University of Southern California devised a test to see what causes us to overeat.

南加州大学的研究人员设计了一个试验来研究是什么导致我们吃的过多。

Can't stop tucking in? Associating certain foods with an environment can keep us eating for longer

吃东西停不下来？将特定食物与某种环境联系起来会使我们吃的持续时间更长。（图片版权所有：Alamy）

They gave people about to enter a cinema a bucket of just-popped fresh popcorn, or stale week-old popcorn.

他们（研究人员）给即将踏进电影院的人一桶刚爆好的爆米花，或者是放了一段时间的不新鲜爆米花。

Moviegoers who didn’t usually eat popcorn at the movies ate much less stale popcorn than fresh popcorn because it just didn't taste good.

不经常在电影院吃爆米花的观影人所吃的新鲜爆米花多于陈旧爆米花，因为不新鲜的爆米花味道可不咋地。

But those who said they typically had popcorn at the movies ate about the same amount of popcorn whether it was fresh or stale.

但对那些已经习惯于在电影院吃爆米花的人来说，不管新鲜与否，他们吃的爆米花数量都是一样多。

In other words, for those in the habit of snacking at the movies, it made no difference whether the popcorn tasted good or not.

换句话来说，对于那些已经形成在电影院吃东西习惯的人，爆米花味道的好坏没有差别。

Co-author Wendy Wood from USC, said: 'People believe their eating behaviour is largely activated by how food tastes. Nobody likes cold, spongy, week-old popcorn.

南加州大学的共同作者温蒂?伍德(Wendy Wood)认为：“人们相信对食物的偏好在很大程度上受食物的口感影响。没人会喜欢冰冷的、海绵似的、不新鲜的爆米花。”

'But once we've formed an eating habit, we no longer care whether the food tastes good. We'll eat exactly the same amount, whether it's fresh or stale.'

“但一旦我们形成了某种吃的习惯，那么我们就会不再关注食物味道的好坏。不管食物新鲜与否，我们吃的数量都是一样多。”

The study, in the current issue of the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, has important implications for understanding overeating and the conditions that may cause people to eat even when they are not hungry or do not like the food.

这项研究发表在最新一期的《个性与社会心理学通报》上，研究对于揭示人们过度饮食以及即使在不饥饿或不喜欢某种食物的情况下仍然会进食的了解有着十分重大的影响。

Lead author David Neal said: 'When we’ve repeatedly eaten a particular food in a particular environment, our brain comes to associate the food with that environment and makes us keep eating as long as those environmental cues are present.'

主要作者戴维?尼尔提到：“当我们重复在特定环境下食用特定食物这一行为时，我们脑海中会将这种食物与环境联系起来，那么只要这种环境因子存在，我们就会吃个不停。”

The researchers also gave popcorn to a control group watching movie clips in a meeting room, rather than in a cinema.

研究人员进行了一组受控试验，同样给予观影人爆米花，但观影的地点转移到了会议室而不是电影院。

In the meeting room, a space not usually associated with popcorn, it mattered a lot if the popcorn tasted good. Outside of the cinema context, even habitual movie popcorn eaters ate much less stale popcorn than fresh popcorn, demonstrating the extent to which environmental cues can trigger automatic eating behaviour.

在会议室这个通常不会与爆米花联系起来的环境，爆米花味道的好坏（对最终食用量）影响很大。在电影院之外的环境，即使是那些已经形成看电影时吃爆米花习惯的观影人所吃的陈旧爆米花量也少于新鲜爆米花，这证明了环境因素能自动促发人们习惯的进食行为。

'The results show just how powerful our environment can be in triggering unhealthy behaviour,' Mr Neal said. 

“这项研究结果显示环境因素对促发不健康行为的影响十分巨大。”尼尔先生说到。

'Sometimes willpower and good intentions are not enough, and we need to trick our brains by controlling the environment instead.'

“有时意志力和良好意愿不足够强的话，我们需要通过控制环境因素来取而代之。”

In a further experiment, researchers found they could also disrupt eating habits by asking participants to eat the popcorn with their non-dominant hand.

在进一步的试验中，研究人员发现可以通过要求参与者使用不常用的那只手来拿取爆米花从而破坏饮食习惯。

This caused them to pay more attention to what they were eating and so ate much less stale popcorn.

这导致（试验）参与人员将更多的注意力集中到所食用的食品上，因此他们就会少吃那些不新鲜的爆米花。

'It’s not always feasible for dieters to avoid or alter the environments in which they typically overeat,' Miss Wood said.

“对节食者来说，通过避免或改变他们引发过度食用环境的这个方法并不总是可行的，”伍德小姐补充。

'More feasible, perhaps, is for dieters to actively disrupt the established patterns of how they eat through simple techniques, such as switching the hand they use to eat.'

“或许对节食者来说更可行的方法是，通过简单的技巧来主动扰乱已经建立的饮食模式，比如调换下不经常拿取食物的手。”