The Science-Backed Strategies That Will Actually Help You Eat Better
Many of the strategies that you think will work don’t. Here are the surprising things that do.
Many of the strategies that you think will work don’t. Here are the surprising things that do.
We know what we should eat. Trouble is, most of us have a hard time sticking to it.
Researchers are racing to understand what pushes people to make healthier food choices. They are finding that broad resolutions to “eat better” are less effective than setting a couple of smaller rules, that eating with other people is helpful and that grocery shopping online can be better than going to the store.
The issue is urgent: The number of Americans who are overweight or have obesity is rising. Nearly three-quarters of US adults ages 20 and older are overweight or obese, according to 2017-2018 figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and some surveys have found that obesity rates rose further during the pandemic.
Doctors and scientists broadly agree that a healthful diet is rich in vegetables, fruits, whole grains and lean meat and poultry—and is composed of fewer foods linked to poor health, including sugar-sweetened foods and drinks, refined grains and large amounts of red meat. Yet most of Americans don’t consume the recommended amount of vegetables, and three-quarters overeat refined grains, such as white bread, according to a government report.
“We’re living in a time where there’s food everywhere. You go to buy a hammer and there’s soda in the checkout line,” says Erica Kenney, assistant professor of public health nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “People berate themselves, but they are fighting against the environment.”
Whether you are trying to overhaul your diet, resist the peanut-butter cups in the checkout aisle or maintain the good habits you already have, research suggests some ways to make healthy eating easier.
People are more likely to act on a plan if it consists of simple steps, psychology research has found. Having one broad goal—such as, “I’m going to eat better”—generally isn’t effective.
Pick one or two specific eating rules and stick to them—and think of yourself as someone who doesn’t do those things. For instance: I don’t consume sugary drinks. Or I don’t eat fried foods. Or I don’t eat dessert during the week.
Restricting yourself in multiple ways makes it harder to stick with good intentions, says Christina A. Roberto, associate professor of health policy at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine.
Conversely, setting a rule “just takes the decision out of it,” says Deborah F. Tate, professor at the Nutrition Research Institute at the University of North Carolina.
Making a shopping list of healthful foods can encourage you to avoid impulse buys when you are at the store, says UNC’s Dr. Tate.
Shopping for groceries online might be even more effective since unhealthy items aren’t right in front of you. Research has found that people tend to make better food choices farther in advance of eating, so the delay between making an online order and receiving it could be helpful, Dr. Roberto says.
People looking to lose weight who shop online buy fewer high-fat foods and fewer items overall compared with those who shop in person, according to a 2007 study in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity that followed 28 participants over eight weeks.
One caveat: Be wary of online ads trying to persuade you to buy items you didn’t plan to purchase. That marketing can derail your good intentions.
Not sleeping enough (generally less than six-and-a-half hours a night) is linked to weight gain, scientific studies have found. Sleep experts generally recommend that healthy adults get between seven and nine hours of sleep a night.
When we are awake longer, we have more time to eat. And there are biological changes that occur when we don’t sleep enough that can lead to overeating.
“Some research suggests there are potential changes to appetite-related hormones when we have short sleep,” says Alyssa Minnick, a postdoctoral fellow in the Division of Sleep Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine. When we are sleep-deprived we tend to crave more high-fat foods, too, she says.
Penn researchers found that study participants allowed to sleep just four hours a night for five nights ate on average an extra 550 calories daily. The paper was published in 2013 in the journal Sleep. More recent research has had similar findings.
When we eat with family and friends we tend to make more well-rounded meals with vegetables, proteins and other components, says Barbara J. Mayfield, a registered dietitian in Delphi, Ind. We also tend to eat more slowly, and often mindfully, when with others, she says, making us better able to notice when we are full.
Eating with others who are also committed to healthy eating can help us achieve our goals, says Rebecca Seguin-Fowler, associate director of the Institute for Advancing Health Through Agriculture at Texas A&M University. You are more apt to skip dessert when your dining companions are too, she says.
Studies have found that when one person in a household is trying to improve their diet and lose weight, the other members lose weight too, even if they aren’t trying to, says Amy Gorin, interim vice provost for health sciences at the University of Connecticut.
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Vacationers scratching their travel itch this season are sending prices through the roof. Here’s how some are making trade-offs.
Capri Coffer socks away $600 a month to help fund her travels. The Atlanta health-insurance account executive and her husband couldn’t justify a family vacation to the Dominican Republic this summer, though, given what she calls “astronomical” plane ticket prices of $800 each.
The price was too high for younger family members, even with Coffer defraying some of the costs.
Instead, the family of six will pile into a rented minivan come August and drive to Hilton Head Island, S.C., where Coffer booked a beach house for $650 a night. Her budget excluding food for the two-night trip is about $1,600, compared with the $6,000 price she was quoted for a three-night trip to Punta Cana.
“That way, everyone can still be together and we can still have that family time,” she says.
With hotel prices and airfares stubbornly high as the 2023 travel rush continues—and overall inflation squeezing household budgets—this summer is shaping up as the season of travel trade-offs for many of us.
Average daily hotel rates in the top 25 U.S. markets topped $180 year-to-date through April, increasing 9.9% from a year ago and 15.6% from 2019, according to hospitality-data firm STR.
Online travel sites report more steep increases for summer ticket prices, with Kayak pegging the increase at 35% based on traveler searches. (Perhaps there is no more solid evidence of higher ticket prices than airline executives’ repeated gushing about strong demand, which gives them pricing power.)
The high prices and economic concerns don’t mean we’ll all be bunking in hostels and flying Spirit Airlines with no luggage. Travellers who aren’t going all-out are compromising in a variety of ways to keep the summer vacation tradition alive, travel agents and analysts say.
“They’re still out there and traveling despite some pretty real economic headwinds,” says Mike Daher, Deloitte’s U.S. transportation, hospitality and services leader. “They’re just being more creative in how they spend their limited dollars.”
For some, that means a cheaper hotel. Hotels.com says global search interest in three-star hotels is up more than 20% globally. Booking app HotelTonight says nearly one in three bookings in the first quarter were for “basic” hotels, compared with 27% in the same period in 2019.
For other travellers, the trade-offs include a shorter trip, a different destination, passing on premium seat upgrades on full-service airlines or switching to no-frills airlines. Budget-airline executives have said on earnings calls that they see evidence of travellers trading down.
Deloitte’s 2023 summer travel survey, released Tuesday, found that average spending on “marquee” trips this year is expected to decline to $2,930 from $3,320 a year ago. Tighter budgets are a factor, he says.
Wendy Marley is no economics teacher, but says she’s spent a lot of time this year refreshing clients on the basics of supply and demand.
The AAA travel adviser, who works in the Boston area, says the lesson comes up every time a traveler with a set budget requests help planning a dreamy summer vacation in Europe.
“They’re just having complete sticker shock,” she says.
Marley has become a pro at Plan B destinations for this summer.
For one client celebrating a 25th wedding anniversary with a budget of $10,000 to $12,000 for a five-star June trip, she switched their attention from the pricey French Riviera or Amalfi Coast to a luxury resort on the Caribbean island of St. Barts.
To Yellowstone fans dismayed at ticket prices into Jackson, Wyo., and three-star lodges going for six-star prices, she recommends other national parks within driving distance of Massachusetts, including Acadia National Park in Maine.
For clients who love the all-inclusive nature of cruising but don’t want to shell out for plane tickets to Florida, she’s been booking cruises out of New York and New Jersey.
Not all of Marley’s clients are tweaking their plans this summer.
Michael McParland, a 78-year-old consultant in Needham, Mass., and his wife are treating their family to a luxury three-week Ireland getaway. They are flying business class on Aer Lingus and touring with Adventures by Disney. They initially booked the trip for 2020, so nothing was going to stand in the way this year.
McParland is most excited to take his teen grandsons up the mountain in Northern Ireland where his father tended sheep.
“We decided a number of years ago to give our grandsons memories,” he says. “Money is money. They don’t remember you for that.”
Chima Enwere, a 28-year old piano teacher in Fayetteville, N.C., is also headed to the U.K., but not by design.
Enwere, who fell in love with Europe on trips the past few years, let airline ticket prices dictate his destination this summer to save money.
He was having a hard time finding reasonable flights out of Raleigh-Durham, N.C., so he asked for ideas in a Facebook travel group. One traveler found a round-trip flight on Delta to Scotland for $900 in late July with reasonable connections.
He was budgeting $1,500 for the entire trip—he stays in hostels to save money—but says he will have to spend more given the pricier-than-expected plane ticket.
“I saw that it was less than four digits and I just immediately booked it without even asking questions,” he says.
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