The real reason TV makes you gain weight

This past week or so, I’ve been working on some articles about how environment affects our weight. Social cues, it turns out, have a huge impact on how much we eat. If, for example, we see skinny people going for huge portions, we’re more likely to do the same. This makes a certain amount of sense–we learn by mimicking. If a person who’s thin is eating a lot of, say, quiche, there’s an implied cue that quiche is probably not so fattening. The conclusion is so quick to reach, it’s easy to ignore the fact that you’ve been eating and doing different things up until this point.

Flawed thinking? Yes. Relatable? Absolutely. Now, scientists have uncovered some similar logic that can be just as  hazardous to our health–but in a much more subtle way.

Experts have always said that kids gain weight from TV-watching because it keeps them from being active. Recently, researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles actually tested that claim. When they compared non-TV watching kids to those who watched videos or commercial-free programs, they saw no difference in weight. Apparently, the TV-watchers spent their time in front of the TV wiggling and jumping about (they presumably ran off some extra energy later, too). However, when the scientists compared these two groups with children who watched TV with commercials, there was a huge difference. The more commercials the kids saw, the heavier they were.

These scientists believe that, for kids, seeing healthy peers eating huge amounts of sugary cereals onscreen has the same kind of effect as watching real, live friends dig into large portions right in front of them. They’re being tempted, and also told it’s okay to indulge.

I’d argue that we adults probably fall victim to the same problem. For instance, when I see a slim, happy person indulging in some ginormous, savory, cheese-filled treat in the middle of my scheduled programming, part of me perks up. I may not assume the item is downright healthy, but some latent part of me does wind up feeling like it might not be as bad for me as it looks. After all, that weird logic goes, healthy-looking people are eating it.

When I asked David Ludwig, MD, PhD, the director of the Obesity Program at Children’s Hospital in Boston, about this, he said it’s yet another good reason to curb or cut out commercial TV (his research has shown similar results). With so many on-demand and online options, scaling back does seem do-able. Though I suspect even just reminding yourself about the effect helps. And that’s a subtle cue that I absolutely plan to take!