You walk into a department store to buy your weekly groceries. Do you feel the urge to buy junk food such as chips and cookies?
If your answer is yes, you are not alone in yielding to such temptation! What drives us to consume junk food, even though we know that such food is not good for our health?
Interestingly, an important factor that drives your purchase of junk food is your method of payment. Do you use credit card or do you pay by cash? Research has shown that we tend to consume more junk food if we pay by credit card! Why?
When you use cash, you feel the pain of paying for the food now. That substantially reduces the anticipated pleasure from consuming junk food.
Less pleasure can discourage you from filling your cart with such food! Paying by card, on the other hand, numbs the pain. Why? You do not feel the actual pain of parting with cash until you pay your credit-card company a month later! And that can drive you to consume more junk now.
But that is not all. Prices can sometimes nudge you away from or towards junk food. Suppose your weekly consumption of fruits and vegetables costs Rs 400 instead of the usual Rs 550 due to decline in prices.
Will you buy more fruit and vegetables, as you are “mentally tuned” to spending Rs 550? If you are typical consumer, chances are you will spend the “saved” money (Rs 150) on junk food! But what if the price of pizza increases by 25 per cent? Your monthly consumption of pizza will certainly come down! In other words, increase in junk food prices can prompt us to consume less.
Dieter's paradox
Finally, consider what happens when we are offered combos — junk food with healthy food. You are likely to overlook the high calories in the junk food and consume it along with healthy food. In other words, having junk food with healthy food seems to create an illusion of lowering the overall calories of the combo!
Perhaps, the good feeling of having healthy food blinds us to the actual calorie intake in the junk food. Dubbed dieter's paradox, this illusion is one reason why you are likely to have a sinful dessert even after a healthy meal!
Research on why we consume junk food is intense, as the world battles with the problem of obesity. A disciplined approach to consuming such food is one way you can moderate your calorie intake. Further, paying by cash and avoiding healthy-junk combos can help you lower your calorie intake. Healthy eating!
(The author is the founder of Navera Consulting. He can be reached at enhancek@gmail.com )