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Hungry for a Super Bowl victory? The Super Buffet table may end up
making the final score.
The Super Bowl ranks #1 in terms of home parties (it even beats New
Year's Eve), and it ranks #2 in food consumption, according to the book,
Mindless Eating (Bantam 2006). In 2004, Super Bowl partiers ate 4,000
tons of popcorn, 14,000 tons of chips and an estimated 3,200,000 pizzas.
And according to a new study, "Even the food you see when you watch
the Super
Bowl can lead you to ‘Blimp' out," says researcher Collin Payne, Ph.D.,
of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab.
In a Champaign, IL sports bar, 53 Super Bowl partiers were treated to
all-you-can-eat chicken wings buffet. The party was actually a study,
and during the game waitresses bussed the chicken bones from half of the
tables, or they let them pile up on people's plates.
Sports fans eating off of clean plates ate 43% more chicken wings
than those whose bones stayed on their plates. "These left-overs served
as boney reminders of how much they had eaten. This kept them from
mindlessly eating more," said Brian Wansink, Ph.D., Cornell University
professor, and lead author of the study.
In general, it is important to have some
 idea
of how much you have eaten. Serve yourself onto a plate, and then stop
when the plate is empty. This is the best strategy for unintended
overeating at your Super Bowl party," says Wansink. "Dish it out, eat it
slowly, and stop."
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