Is Your Kitchen Making You Fat?

The familiar phrases “out of sight out of mind” and “why fight an uphill battle” can apply well to whether the layout of one’s fridge and kitchen will affect one’s eating habits. The Times Free Press takes a look at behavioral and nutritional science professor Brian Wansink’s book Slim by Design, in which various studies on the design of kitchens, restaurants and school lunchrooms are compiled to determine their effect on eating habits. We already had a sneak peek at a portion of Wansink’s ideas in the Lunch’d Project. However, this article focused specifically on kitchen design and whether it works for or against healthy eating habits. Wansink’s ideas focus on working with human nature to make healthy eating choices easier and simpler for individuals to actually make.

One such study, “Slim by Design: Kitchen Counter Correlates of Obesity,” documented the state of 210 households in Syracuse, NY and compared BMI with the state of the kitchen counters in each household, i.e. clutter and presence of fruit or various unhealthy foods sitting on the counter.² The Times Free Press slightly exaggerated the results, claiming a difference of 21 pounds between those who had a box of cereal visible on the counter and those who didn’t.¹ Wansink et al. actually found that weights ranged from 20 pounds to 31 pounds when the kitchen had a presence of “candy, cereal, soft drinks, and dried fruits”.² They also found lower BMI was associated with households who had fruits sitting out on the counters.

This returns back to those phrases mentioned earlier. If unhealthy foods are out of sight (not sitting in plain view on the counter), are individuals more likely to avoid them and grab an apple or banana as a snack instead? Wansink thinks yes. The Times Free Press also mentions Wansink’s studies that show individuals are more likely to reach for the first foods they see (a theory he tested out in Lunch’d as well), and thus will take the less cumbersome task of grabbing the healthier foods positioned in the front of the fridge rather than reaching towards the back for the leftover chinese or sodas. Practitioners can use these ideas (whether in lunchrooms, fueling stations for sports teams, snack stands in the workplace, etc.) to their advantage by making access to healthier foods more compatible with human nature, thus increasing the likelihood than individuals will make healthier food selections simply because those selections are within closer reach.

¹Pierce, S. Is your kitchen making you fat? Author says design, setup of kitchen can work for or against you (January 10, 2015). Times Free Press. Retrieved October 16, 2016 from http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/life/entertainment/story/2015/jan/10/your-kitchen-making-you-fat/281726/.

²Wansink, B., Andrew, S., and Kaipainen, K. Slim by Design: Kitchen Counter Correlates of Obesity (August 12, 2015). Health Education & Behavior, Forthcoming. Retrieved October 16, 2016 from https://ssrn.com/abstract=2643023.