16 oz. Soda Ban Approved By NYC Board of Health

Having taken a moment to think this over, I seem to have even more questions. Before going any further, I'll posit a question to the thread in general.

Do we agree that training, upbringing, exposure, and practicing particular skills has a noticeable impact?

Why yes or no?

Noticeable impact on what?

Oh sorry. An impact on forming social behaviors; on forming an overall personality, even?

Yes: it all does. And, if those forces aren't all pulling in the same direction, things can get... interesting.

Genetics and brain-development in the womb play a large part in developing individual personalities and predispositions to such things as risk-taking... but, the framework that that "default setting" finds itself in also has a massive impact on how it plays out.

Okay, next question (I did say I had a few, sorry), which has the greater impact, external influences like advertising, or early development environment, i.e. home, school, early childhood experiences, etc.

Advertising is part of early development. Saturday morning cartoons are loaded with ads for Mc Donalds, least that's how I remember it.

The short answer is: nobody really knows what the proportions actually are, Starship. That's where some of the more... bloody... academic fights take place. Sorry: there is no definitive proof that one is "greater", over all: it varies that much from individual to individual and between groups. <shrugs> And, who's funding the research, of course.

All that can really be said is: the all have a significant impact, depending on the balance and interplay of factors. <shrugs> Sorry.

Exactly: companies aren't stupid. They start you young for a reason. Although... it can bite them in unexpected areas: games and toy companies have to be really ahead of the curve, as some of the training they give has been shown to teach kids to wise up over time to the more blatant attempts to win them over, ironically enough. It's why successful campaigns spend tonnes trying to beat that wrinkle as their base grows up a bit... The problem is: there are always new replacements who have yet to learn to tune you out.

edited 20th Sep '12 8:38:21 PM by Euodiachloris

I see.

So, going back to Clarste's example, is it possible that combating external influence, namely, being goaded into overeating, is best combated not by trying to 'ignore' said external influence, but rather by going around it??

Meaning, if Clarste said "Advertising can't affect me, I just won't overeat", that would be ineffective. But by him accepting that he is susceptible to external influence, and finding a way to subvert his own response to it (i.e. changing the bowls in his house) he was in fact able to surmount the overeating obstacle by going around it.

Is this an accurate insight into the situation?

Yes. That's basically how it works.

I posted before in the thread some links, one to a study and another to an article in the Guardian. In the Guardian article, they talked about some scientists who were given the ability to experiment with the menu of a chinese restraunt.

They first tried giving dinner items in half-sizes for reduced price in addition to the full sized portions. This failed, as anyone who has had a salad at California Pizza Kitchen can attest to.

Then they tried the same with the side-dishes, such as rice. This worked very well, but now the restraunt was losing money.

So they did something weird: They kept the half-sized order possibility, but made it cost the same as the normal portion.

They found that this still worked, and that 40% of patrons still ordered the half size even though it cost the same.

Could you repost that study please.

Study.

Article.

@Enkufka: I'm not sure how well that translates to fast food though, since they were explicitly asking the customer if they wanted less rice at the point-of-sale. I've worked fast food before, and I do know that it's possible to ask for your items with less or none of an ingredient (eg, getting a sausage-egg-cheese sandwich minus the sausage, or getting something without mayo), and it usually doesn't affect the price. Yet people don't do it.

The other problem is that fast food usually encourages you to spend more by eating more. They ask you if you want to add cheese or bacon, or if you want to make it a large at the point-of-sale.

I get a feeling it's less about whether or not people are actively picking the healthier option (less rice) and more about whether or not they're just responding to suggestion.

I was actually using it as an example of how people circumvent the urge to over-eat by restricting their portion size, but I can understand what you're saying, that it might actually be more due to the interaction with the waiter and thus imposing a direct social effect.

Upselling fast food orders (or food orders in general) is a tried and true tactic of almost all food retailers. Heck, it's true of all retailers.

I think that if people could save money by choosing fewer condiments/options, they would, but as most restaurants don't offer that (and for good reason from their own perspective, as it causes the patrons to nickel and dime them to death), there's no incentive to ask for them to be removed unless it's for specific dietary or taste reasons. For example, I don't like mustard or pickles, and I am milk protein intolerant so I have to get burgers without cheese. I'm not having those taken off to get a cheaper burger, I'm having them taken off so I will like the burger (and so it won't make me sick).

@Enkufka: Well, yeah. Giving people less food on a smaller plate has been known to reduce consumption for a while now. Like we were talking about it in our high school health class, and that was nearly ten years ago.

The trick is getting people to actually get the smaller plateful.

Honestly, it's something I would like to see another study done on. I'd really like to see what people do when presented with the two sizes (half rice or full rice) at the same price in a neutral way (like just options on the menu) as compared to how they choose when the waiter mentions one choice but not the other. I get a feeling that the neutral presentation will still result in people taking the "full rice" option.

edited 21st Sep '12 1:40:27 PM by DrunkGirlfriend

As much as I'd like people to eat healthier, I can't possibly see any rationale for getting people to pay equal money for less food compared to bigger portions. That just doesn't make sense on a fundamental level, because people always want the most possible value for their cash, even in GOOD economic times, let alone what we're dealing with right now.

Well, it's a response to the article Enkufka posted, where the same percentage of people were buying half the amount of rice for the same price as people who were buying half the rice for less.

edited 21st Sep '12 2:04:18 PM by DrunkGirlfriend

@Kark: they tried it with the dinner dishes first, and that failed. The primary part of the meal, people will not skimp on, as half sizes tend to cost 3/4ths the price of the full size, but the non-primary parts of the meal can have these weird sorts of things, as they cost less and people feel they're being cheated less.

I know, but it seems to me that there's a really big difference between 'I am happy with this plate at this price' and 'I am happy with this plate at this price... even if I could get more for the exact amount of money with no extra trouble.'

For that matter, if you want to have the best of both worlds, why not take the larger plate and save half of it for leftovers, assuming an available container?

That's why I'm wanting a study to see if it was due to the waiter mentioning the option, or if people were doing it of their own accord.

Because the urge to eat everything you can is still there. I have a very hard time to stop eating, even when I know I'm full, but there is still food left on the plate.

I know it seems mad, but it apparently worked. >shrug<

However, I do think they need to test this again with a different restaurant.

If you were raised like I was, I'm wondering if that urge was reinforced by the "you're not leaving the table until you eat everything on your plate" thing parents do.

No, I never had that, fortunately.

I wonder how many kids were raised to always finish everything on their plate? Bonus points if the parents pulled the "starving kids in Africa" card.

I was, but the stuff on my plate was pretty much always healthy, I was quite underweight for most of my childhood, and there frequently simply wasn't much else available.

Also, this◊.

edited 23rd Sep '12 10:48:12 PM by EdwardsGrizzly