Diet Foods can make you Fat

Feeding the kids diet food may condition them to overeat and gain weight according to new research published today in the journal Obesity. We instinctively match calorie intake with the body’s energy needs and we are conditioned to associate taste with calories ingested. However when children are fed diet versions of foods normally high in calories, this “taste conditioning process” gets short circuited causing them to overeat.

Diet Food Study
While the research was done with rodents, we have a lot in common with these furry little creatures when it comes to “taste conditioning.” To condition tastes, young rats were given sweet or salty Jell-O-like cubes that either contained high-calorie starch or were artificially sweetened and contained no starch. Following this conditioning process, rats were later fed snacks and regular meals. Those conditioned by the taste of “diet” snacks with fewer calories, routinely overate at meals. The same experiment was conducted with lab rats that were bred to be lean or obese, with similar results. However, the additional food consumed resulted in more weight gain for the rats bred to be obese. Results were different with older rats suggesting that they relied less on taste-related cues to assess calories.

“Essentially, they are tricked or fooled by the taste, and conditioned to think it will always be low in calories. I’m not saying people should not eat diet foods. I’m cautioning that it might be best to not give youngsters diet foods because it risks conditioning their tastes in a way that isn’t beneficial.” -David Pierce, a sociologist at the University of Alberta in Edmonton and lead author of the study.

Celebrity Diet Doctor Weigh in…
From an evolutionary standpoint, this instinctive taste conditioning process probably conferred a survival advantage. Learning to associate sugar and fat with greater calorie content, meant that our ancestors could locate the foods that were going to best fuel their very active lifestyles insuring their survival. Fast forward to modern times, with food available everywhere you turn, this taste conditioning process now plays a different role, helping us to limit calorie intake. However when conditioned by the taste of diet foods, our body is tricked into believing sugary foods, for example, don’t contain as many calories so you wind up eating more.

I believe diet versions of high calorie foods creates a much larger problem with people than it does for rodents. Unlike rodents, people read labels and are conditioned by marketing messages. The problem with diet foods is that it tempts dieters to eat greater portions, which will offset any calorie savings. Practicing portion control with “diet foods” becomes even more difficult since diet foods also short circuit our taste-related cues that would normally serve to limit calorie intake.

The belief that “diet foods” allow you to “have your cake and eat it too” is an illusion for many. You can still have your cake, but practicing portion control is always going to be key.

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