Posters For Exercise May Make You Eat
Researchers at the University of Illinois have found that people exposed to material promoting physical activity ate sooner after the encounter than those who were shown more neutral material.
"It's very interesting to us, because this shows there's potential for exercise campaigns to induce eating by producing this more general tendency toward action," said Dolores Albarracin, who headed the study.
The team showed university students five movie posters with messages such as "Go for a walk" or "Join a gym," and then immediately asked them to sample a small amount of food. Students who saw the exercise posters ate about a third more than a control group who saw similarly designed posters promoting social interaction, with messages like "Be together."
In another part of the study, which appears this week in the journal Obesity, participants were exposed to subliminal messages during a computer activity. Those who saw words related to physical activity ate about 20% more than those who saw neutral words, such as "moon."
Proponents of physical activity worry the study could send the wrong signal.
"The message that we do need to send to Canadians is that, yes, you must be physically active. Yes, we must encourage each other to be physically active," said Kelly Murumets, president and CEO of Participaction.
March 18, 2009
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