Consuming Choices: The Psychology Behind Eating on Campus

November 30, 2007

by Steve Gershman and Hai-Jung Kim

Freshmen fear the 15. Most Tufts students make conscious efforts to stay healthy and in shape, but people act differently when they are able to eat as much food as they want, whenever they want it. Why does this happen? What are the roots of eating decisions and how do they apply to Tufts undergrads?

When we were children and young adults, before our life at Tufts, we were taught to eat balanced meals and to eat everything on our plates. While these requirements are not necessarily bad advice, they prompt us to base our eating habits on more than hunger. Students develop eating routines, schedules, and conveniences, and some find it difficult to break that mold.

Food on a Schedule

A vast majority of students interviewed in an Observer survey set times for eating meals. In addition, many of them provided unprompted insights into their behavioral patterns. “I eat lunch around 12:30 and dinner around seven depending on classes,” says senior Josh Yellin. Likewise, other students claimed that their class or work schedules were the most influential factors determining when they ate meals.

Robin Kanarek, a psychology professor at Tufts, says these abnormal eating habits are largely due to a “society of work,” and how “people have set lives in our society” in terms of what is done at what times. In deciding when to eat, students maneuver around classes, part-time jobs, studying for tests, and extracurricular and other activities. Additionally, most students prefer to wake up as late as they can without sacrificing their commitments. Since eating breakfast is not considered a commitment, the majority of students surveyed said they eat only two meals each day. Every person who responded that he or she eats fewer than three meals a day also refrained from eating in the morning. However, breakfast is considered by medical professionals to be the most important meal of the day since it restores the glucose levels and essential nutrients necessary for the body to perform to its potential.

Prof. Kanarek provided a glimpse into a working person’s life as being even more stringently regulated in terms of eating times. “Get up, go to breakfast, work, lunch at meetings,” she says, noting that “dinner varies more than other meals.” She contrasted this routine with eating patterns she observed in Africa. She studied a group of Bushmen — indigenous people of the Kalahari Desert — who “didn’t go to work, but ate much more often than we do [and] in smaller proportions.”

People’s snacking habits depend, therefore, on the society in which they live and on their schedule. Because students are generally busy with classes, homework, errands, and extracurricular activities, they tend to eat infrequently and have large meals at the buffet-style dining halls.

Food and Society

If eating is affected by society, it’s also a social event. A step into one of the dining halls shows how closely tied eating is to human interaction. Scientific studies have explored this relationship, such as one by researchers from the University of Georgia involving people eating alone and with others. In general, people eat more when in groups, especially if it is a group of people they know.

Prof. Karanek explains, “You’re going out to dinner with people who you don’t really know and you want dessert. But if they don’t want dessert, you may decide not to order dessert because you don’t want to look like you’re eating too much.” She also points to the emotional ties people hold with food. “People remember holidays as a child and the foods they ate,” she says. “When you’re sick, there’s chicken soup, which becomes linked to the feeling that someone is taking care of you.” While chicken soup has nutritional benefits, the sensation of feeling better caused by eating chicken soup is more psychological than physiological.

There is an additional evolutionary basis to eating in groups. Prof. Karanek conducted a study with foods that smelled different. In her experiment, a rat ate a food that smelled like licorice or basil, while another rat stood watching. The rat that saw another rat eating licorice was more likely to eat licorice. Likewise, the rat that saw another rat eating basil was more likely to eat basil. Through observation, the rats learned something about each food and found out whether it was safe to ingest.

The study exemplifies the psychological term “mere exposure effect,” in which simply sensing a person or thing brings it to the forefront of one’s mind and therefore is more familiar and often consequently more desirable. The idea that choosing to eat one thing over another as a matter of life or death is far removed from our daily reality. But the next time we decide to eat ice cream after watching a friend eat ice cream, it is interesting to note that there may be millions of years of survival at play.

Food is Everywhere

Between Dewick, Carmichael, and Hodgdon, a Tufts student is never far from food and thus always exposed to it, prompting people to eat frequently. Dining hall food, as well as food from restaurants that deliver to campus, is simply convenient. In addition, many students have stockpiles of food in their rooms. People eat not only because they are hungry, but also to quell emotions, to procrastinate, and to be social.

When choosing what types of food to eat, students have very different criteria for deciding. In general, students seek variety and balance in their meals. Physiologically, this desire stems from the body wanting to acquire more of the vitamins and minerals that it needs to work efficiently. Psychologically, people simply get bored of eating the same thing. Prof. Kanarek brings up a Penn State study that shows the effect boredom has on eating choices, and the concept known as sensory specific satiety. “Let’s say you’re having meatloaf for dinner,” she says. “When you’re really full and can’t eat anymore, then you get the dessert tray. When you are full from what you’re eating, you’re more likely to eat something different then what you have been eating.” Simply seeing the dessert tray may make you realize that you are not full, and that you want another type of food. For this reason, waiters at many restaurants bring a dessert tray to the table after the entrée to elicit this psychological response.

The Fifteen

As for the freshmen worried about an extra 15 pounds, Prof. Kanarek attributes such preoccupations to “the initial availability of food, and the staying up and eating.” She warns especially of the time after Thanksgiving break when students study for finals. The worsening of eating habits during finals emanates from many factors. Many people eat to relieve stress, while others use eating as a form of procrastination. Also, since some parents condition their children to use food as a reward for listening or completing an action, some students use food as a motivational force for various endeavors, namely studying. Despite these factors and the excess of eating that often arises around finals, Prof. Kanarek expresses faith in the students at Tufts, believing that in the long run, “the freshman 15 turns out to be the freshman five. Most people lose it before graduating.”