Buffets: The Spice of Life or a Risk Factor for Overeating?

Whether it is a Super Bowl party, a wedding, a Fourth of July barbecue, or Thanksgiving dinner, people celebrate with grand feasts. However, a new study by researchers in the Department of Nutritional Sciences at Penn State University reveals that having many options can lead to overeating by increasing the variety of food choices, especially high-calorie ones.

The researchers recruited 50 people between the ages of 18 and 65 and had them come to the lab for three sessions, one week apart, each conducted at lunch or dinner time. During the sessions, participants chose the food they wanted to eat from a virtual reality (VR) buffet.

At the buffet, participants were offered 9, 18, or 27 food items each time they visited. Regardless of the number of options, the buffet contained a similar proportion of high-energy-density foods, such as cookies, and low-energy-density foods, such as vegetables. Participants were instructed to refrain from exercise, eating, and caffeine intake for several hours before their visits to ensure they remained hungry.

Participants wore VR headsets, entered a VR buffet restaurant, and held video game-style controllers in both hands, allowing them to select food just as they would at an actual buffet. The system recorded the weight and calories of the selected food, as well as the amount of food including high-energy-density and low-energy-density items.

Participants who visited the 9-item buffet selected just over 600g of food. Participants who visited the 18-item or 27-item buffets selected over 900g of food.

"External factors clearly influence what and how much people eat," the researchers stated. "However, even if the variety increases, there seems to be an upper limit to the total weight of food chosen for a meal."

Although there was an upper limit to the weight of the food participants served themselves, calorie intake did not follow a similar pattern. Participants who visited the 9-item buffet selected an average of 850 kcal of food. This increased to 1,320 kcal (about a 55% increase) at the 18-item buffet, and to nearly 1,500 kcal at the 27-item buffet. This represented a 75% increase compared to the amount consumed by the same participants at the 9-item buffet.

"It seems that as the number of options increases, people are more inclined to choose higher-calorie foods," the researchers noted. "Many people in the United States consume more calories than they need, and the wide variety of foods around us may be causing us to eat more than we otherwise would."

"By understanding the factors that drive our choices, we hope to be able to design food environments that support health rather than overconsumption," the researchers commented.

The source is "Appetite".