You’re stuffed after a big restaurant dinner — but then the dessert cart rolls around, and you just have to order that gorgeous chocolate mousse. Or you’re munching from a big bag of chips while checking emails, and when you look up, the bag is empty.
Environmental factors — like package size, portion size, the variety of food you’re served, and the size of your plate — can influence your eating more than you realize, experts say. Indeed, if we always ate only when we were really hungry and stopped when we were full, there would be no obesity epidemic. Here are eight factors that can cause overeating and weight gain:
Distracted Eating
“Eating amnesia” is the act of almost unconsciously putting food in your mouth, usually from a big bag or bowl while sitting in front of the television, reading a book, checking emails, or during happy hour.
It’s also easy not to register the tastes you take while cooking, or those last few bites from the kids’ plates that you finish off.
Multi-tasking can lead to overeating because you’re not paying attention to what you are eating. When you eat more mindfully, you really taste the food — and are more likely to feel satisfied sooner. Food should touch more of your senses to be satisfying, instead of just filling in the hole.
Genetics
Obesity has a strong genetic component. Children of obese parents are much more likely to become obese than children of lean parents.
That doesn’t mean that obesity is completely predetermined. What you eat can have a major effect on which genes are expressed and which are not.
Non-industrialized societies rapidly become obese when they start eating a typical Western diet. Their genes didn’t change, but the environment and the signals they sent to their genes did.
Put simply, genetic components do affect your susceptibility to gaining weight. Studies on identical twins demonstrate this very well
Food Addiction
Many sugar-sweetened, high-fat junk foods stimulate the reward centers in your brain.
In fact, these foods are often compared to commonly abused drugs like alcohol, cocaine, nicotine and cannabis.
Junk foods can cause addiction in susceptible individuals. These people lose control over their eating behavior, similar to people struggling with alcohol addiction losing control over their drinking behavior.
Addiction is a complex issue that can be very difficult to overcome. When you become addicted to something, you lose your freedom of choice and the biochemistry in your brain starts calling the shots for you.
