Have you ever wondered why you reach for a snack after hitting the gym?
Research shows that physical exercise often leads to increased food consumption, whether it’s to indulge in a job well done or to replenish energy you’ve burned.
With countless televised sporting events and our screens constantly filled with sporting contests, a new question arises: Can watching sports on screen also affect how much we eat?
The answer is yes. Our research, authored by Jannine Lasaleta, reveals that watching sports videos can increase the consumption of sweets. But there’s more to the story: the difficulty of the sports you watch plays a major role in these effects.
From screens to junk food
First, we invited 112 students to the experimental laboratory of the Grenoble Ecole de Management to watch a video and test some candies. Half of the students watched a video of men and women exercising, while the other half watched one without any physical activity.
We then gave each student a 70g cup of candy and asked them to judge its quality for three minutes. Students who watched the sports video ate more candy than those who watched it without physical activity.
So our initial test revealed that watching sports videos can increase candy consumption, but here’s the twist: male students indulged in far more candy than female students, so the results may have been driven by male consumption. In addition, we were still not sure whether the type of sport watched affects the intake of sweets.
To learn more, we invited only female students to watch videos showing simple (easy running) or difficult sports (athletics, long jump, gymnastics, baseball, rugby or rock climbing). Then the students were asked to test the same candies as before.
Students who watched a simple sports video (showing a woman and a man walking through different landscapes) ate significantly more candy (30.1 grams) than those who watched a difficult sports video (18 grams).
We can therefore conclude that the perceived ease or difficulty of the exercise significantly affects the consumption of sweets – watching easy sports leads to a significantly higher intake of sweets than watching demanding sports.
Why is this happening?
To explain our findings, we looked at research on goal motivation. When people feel they are falling short, they push harder; but once they see progress they tend to relent.
For example, after a workout, those trying to stay fit may feel like they’ve made good progress and then slack off in their efforts. This can lead to a decrease in motivation to pursue related goals, such as healthy eating.
Research shows that accomplishing smaller goals (such as exercise) can make people feel like they’ve earned a break, which can lead to overindulging. So completing a workout can make you more likely to reward yourself with extra food than if you hadn’t.
And why are women more susceptible to the phenomenon of eating more candy after watching an easy-to-follow sports video? Simply because it has long been shown that women are more concerned with their weight than men and therefore their diet goals are more prominent.
Our research suggests that simply watching sports can lead to a sense of vicariously accomplishing fitness goals. When people can visualize themselves doing the activity they are watching, they feel as if they are already exercising, which can lead to freer food choices.
If they perceive the exercise shown as easy rather than difficult, they can more easily visualize themselves doing it, leading to greater feelings of progress toward their fitness goals. This perceived success can make them feel they have earned the right to indulge and influence their reward seeking, often leading to increased food intake.
So what?
This knowledge can be used by policy makers or marketers aiming to promote healthy lifestyles. When people promote healthy activities by portraying physical activity as too easy, they may feel a greater sense of accomplishment, which could backfire and lead to increased consumption.
As an alternative, we recommend showing an easy exercise (such as walking or jogging) followed by a harder exercise (such as sprinting or marathon running).
This approach can motivate people to start with basic exercises while reminding them that they still have a long way to go to reach their fitness goals. This strategy could offer an alternative to encourage physical activity without creating a false sense of achievement.
So what’s in it for us? Realize how watching sports can affect our eating habits. If you’re struggling to keep your diet on track, watch some more demanding sports – it might help you resist that extra chocolate bar.
Additionally, when you set your diet goals, remind yourself that real progress comes from constant effort, not just imagining that you’re working out. Engage in activities that really challenge you and combine them with careful eating habits. This way, you can avoid the trap of feeling like your fitness goal will be met prematurely and then overdoing it.
In conclusion, should you be watching the Olympics if you want to keep up with your diet? Of course, but it might be better to choose the physical activities that you find the most difficult – and watch them unmoderated.
Birau Mia, Associate Professor of Marketing, EM Lyon Business School and Carolina OC Werle, Professor of Marketing, Grenoble École de Management (GEM)
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.