Have you ever found yourself sitting in front of the TV in the evening and getting hungry, even though you ate a satisfying dinner? Or standing in line in a coffee shop with every intention of simply getting a nonfat latte but by the time you walk past the pastry cabinet, you decide you have to have a scone, too?  Well, a new study sheds light on what may be going on with these common experiences. http://www.nature.com/oby/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/oby2011385a.html

You may have heard about the hunger hormone, ghrelin, which is produced in the stomach and increases right before breakfast, lunch, and dinner, triggering our desire to eat.  The hormonal signals from ghrelin provoke multiple changes in our brain chemistry, increasing appetite and maybe even causing food cravings.

In a new study, Dr. Petra Schussler and her colleagues from the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich, Germany demonstrate that simply seeing pictures of food causes levels of ghrelin to rise.  Volunteers in the study were fed a good breakfast at 8:30am and then, around 10:30 am, they were shown a series of pictures.  One group was shown neutral pictures of non-food items, and the other group was shown pictures of tasty savory and sweet foods.  Ghrelin levels in the blood were measured every 30 minutes from the start of the study until the volunteers were fed lunch at noon.  The researchers found that the group that was shown pictures of food had significantly higher levels of ghrelin, which increased immediately after they saw the pictures.  Previous research has even shown that ghrelin can hit us in our wallets – when researchers injected volunteers with ghrelin, they were more likely to purchase food items than if they received an injection of water. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110712094044.htm

So, now imagine the evening TV scenario in the context of what is likely happening in your body.  You’ve eaten a good dinner so your ghrelin levels are low and you don’t feel hungry.  Turn on the TV to watch your favorite show and here come the pictures – commercial after commercial showing cheesy pizza, juicy burgers, and tasty desserts.  Your ghrelin levels (which normally wouldn’t start to increase again until right before breakfast) start to rise in response to seeing images of foods.  Suddenly, you feel hungry…hmmmm, maybe that dinner wasn’t so filling after all and I need a snack!

So, now that you know that advertisers are literally manipulating your physiology, what can you do to make sure you stick to your calorie goals?  Apart from just unplugging the TV, here are a couple ideas:

• Vote with your remote:  Every time a food commercial comes on, change the channel.  (Unfortunately just muting the commercials won’t work because you’ll still see the images!)
• Develop your ability to detect true, physical hunger: This is a skill that needs time and practice so you can call on it when you need it.  When you stay mindful and aware of what physical hunger feels like, you’ll know that you are not really hungry when your stomach is still full of dinner (regardless of what your brain is signaling!)
• “Close” the kitchen after meals: After you’ve washed up your dishes and wiped your counters, turn out the lights and tell yourself that the kitchen is “off limits” until it’s time to prepare your next meal or planned snack.  I once had a patient who literally put a “Kitchen Closed” sign up – whatever works!
• Keep your motivators and core values handy: Remembering that you want to lose weight to improve a health condition, so that you have more energy, or so your knees don’t hurt when you play with your kids is a great defense against those pastry displays!

Remember, while there are plenty of environmental forces that promote overeating and inactivity, ultimately we are the ones who have the power to make choices that support our health and values.  We don’t have to blame food companies, we just have to make sure we are aware of the pressures that affect us and feel empowered to make choices that support us.

About the author:

Dr. Jennifer Lovejoy is the Vice President of Clinical Development & Support at Alere Wellbeing – www.alerewellbeing.com. She holds a Ph.D. in BioPsychology from Emory University and completed postdoctoral training in Endocrinology and Metabolism at Emory University School of Medicine, where she specialized in obesity and diabetes research. Dr. Lovejoy’s clinical research program has been funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the American Diabetes Association, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and NASA. She maintains adjunct faculty appointments at Bastyr University and University of Washington School of Public Health, has published over 50 scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals, over 15 chapters and review articles, and is a frequent speaker on obesity and nutrition at national and international conferences. She is the immediate Past-President of the Obesity Society.

I like Royal weddings. I grew up in a former British colony and I have vivid memories of creating scrapbooks of Prince Charles and the late Princess Diana’s wedding with my mother and grandmother. This time around, I still appreciated the pomp and circumstance that is present at this kind of occasion.

After the event, I was musing about Princess Diana, Sarah Ferguson and our newest royal, Catherine, and I realized something quite disturbing. All three of these women have been hounded by the press about their body weight. Too fat, too thin, on a diet, off a diet. Sigh. Kate had endless headlines written about her body as if that is all that is of interest about her. Princess Diana stepped into the limelight in 1981 and thirty years later, the headlines about the new royal are the same. I know it is this way with so many celebrities but the pervasiveness of this criticism in our culture does not make it one iota more appropriate.

The term that is often used to describe this kind of body criticism is “fat talk”. Many of us talk this way every day. See if you recognize these examples: “I ate way too much. No dinner for me” or “She’s lost weight. I wonder how she did it” or “He’s gained weight. He looks awful” or “I’d do anything to have thinner thighs”. You can even engage in fat talk without saying a word – you might sigh as you look at yourself in the mirror or roll your eyes at a friend when an overweight woman in a swimsuit walks by.

You may be wondering why this fat talk business is a big deal. You might comment that it is the way you connect with your mom or your daughter or your close friends. It’s what you and your co workers talk about over lunch.

Well, I encourage you to take the NO FAT TALK challenge for just one week and here’s why:

• Being critical of yourself or others is not going to inspire positive change
• Fat talk encourages us to focus on a person’s appearance, rather than their internal attributes
• Fat talk depletes our self confidence and the self esteem of others
• Fat talk teaches our kids to think negatively about their bodies
• Fat talk is a waste of energy that could be used in so many wonderfully creative ways

So see if for the next week you can avoid media that is involved in fat talk. Let your friends and coworkers know that you will kindly change the subject if weight/diets/unhealthy body image is being discussed. Let your kids hear you say positive things about your body, for example “I am so happy to have strong legs. That’s why I have been able to play baseball with you all afternoon”. Compliment friends on attributes that actually matter – do you feel heard when you are with them? Perhaps you really appreciate how much your mom makes you laugh.

It’s just a one week experiment. I am doing it too. So give it a try, post a comment and let me know how it goes.

Would you ever talk to your loved ones the way you talk to yourself in your head? Are you someone who uses adjectives like “lazy,” “pathetic” or “stupid” to describe yourself even though you would never describe others that way?

If so, you are not alone. There is a whole new area of psychological research called self compassion which focuses on how kindly people view themselves. The research shows that many people are very kind and supportive of others yet endlessly berate themselves.

The interesting part from a health point of view is that people who score high on tests of self-compassion have less depression and anxiety, and tend to be happier and more optimistic. Preliminary data suggest that self-compassion can even influence how much we eat and may help some people lose weight.

I have talked to many patients about the fact that self compassion is a very important first step in behavior change. The response I most often get is: “But if I don’t yell at myself, then I will never change anything”. The belief is that if you don’t whip yourself into shape, then you will stay on the couch forever.

The truth is that self compassion is not the same as self indulgence. If you care about yourself and view yourself kindly, you will most likely choose to treat yourself in a more healthful way.

This approach is backed up by a 2007 study at Wake Forest University. 84 female college students were asked to take part in what they thought was a food-tasting experiment. At the beginning of the study, the women were asked to eat donuts.

One group was instructed to be compassionate with themselves in relation to the food. “I hope you won’t be hard on yourself,” the instructor said. “Everyone in the study eats this stuff, so I don’t think there’s any reason to feel real bad about it.”

The researchers found that women who were regular dieters or had guilt feelings about forbidden foods ate less after hearing the instructor’s reassurance. Those not given the message of reassurance ate more.

The hypothesis is that the women who felt bad about the donuts ate more as a result of emotional eating. The women who gave themselves permission to enjoy the sweets did not overeat.

Think about how you might respond to a friend who is struggling with his exercise plan. Would you yell at him, tell him he has no self-discipline and that you won’t like him until he starts exercising? If you did that, do you think he would be more motivated to make positive changes?

So why do we think that approach will work well for ourselves? We are more motivated to make changes when we accept our strengths and weaknesses and are kind to ourselves.

Many of us have longstanding habits of being mean to ourselves. We need to actively develop more self compassion. It can be helpful to start by writing down the negative things we tell ourselves. It can be eye opening to just start to notice what those things are and how often we are saying them.

The next step may be to build self compassion into our regular routines. Can you stop for a moment and rub your neck or your shoulders? Can you take an extra ten minutes to make the food on your lunch plate look attractive? Can you tell yourself some of the kind things you say to your friends?

Kindness truly can move mountains. You may notice that you feel more relaxed and that you even have more energy for the changes you want to make. Here’s to self compassion – give it a try and see what you think.

References:

Adams, CE; Leary, MR. (2007) Promoting Self-Compassionate Attitudes Toward Eating Among Restrictive and Guilty Eaters. Journal of Social and Clinical Sociology. 26(10):1120-1144.

Parker-Pope, T. (2011, Feb). Go Easy on Yourself, a New Wave of Research Urges. New York Times. Retrieved April 20, 2011 from http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/28/go-easy-on-yourself-a-new-wave-of-research-urges/