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Watching Crime Shows Makes You Eat More?

I'm a little bit out of touch with what's popular on TV - but I do know that crime shows are perennial favorites. We really are fixated with murder and violence.

A curious study has shown that people eat more when they contemplate death.

"People want to consume more of all kinds of foods, both healthy and unhealthy, when thinking about the idea that they will die some day," the researchers write in the August issue of the Journal of Consumer Research. (source)

The researchers believe that contemplating death makes us more self-aware - and many of us try to escape by overeating or overspending.

Add this to the growing list of emotional and psychological issues that can lead us to eat more.

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12 Comments

Spectra

Yet another reason not to eat while watching TV. Luckily, all those crime shows always bore me to tears, so I don't usually watch them. I'd rather watch the Food Network or the Style channel, lol.

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Heather

Eew, have you seen some of the episodes of CSI: Miami? I could not stomach food while watching those.

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Barry

Heather you'll enjoy this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sarYH0z948

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Spectra

Yeah, I have a really strong stomach for that sort of stuff, but my big manly husband just about passes out whenever he sees anything "gross", which includes surgery shows, most of those crime shows, etc. So whenever they come on, he watches for about a millisecond and then starts squirming around and changes the channel, lol.

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blah

Interesting.

Last year, I watched a movie about a woman who was dying a painful death. That movie produced a chain reaction of thoughts in my mind that led me to quit smoking, start eating healthy, and exercising - I have lost about 40 pounds since then and haven't smoked once.

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Gabrielle

It seems that psychological triggers are everywhere.

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Tom

Yeah, a lot of our eating habits seem to be tied to our emotions. It seems like just about everything we encounter causes a psychological change that makes us eat more.

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pucca

This is so ironic. I found myself eating extra food tonight watching CSI.

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Barry

Nobody cares if you watch TV. Just make your point and move on. Telling us about how you're not in touch with what's popular on TV makes you sound pompous and arrogant and has nothing to do with the subject of your post. You're just preening. Stop it.

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wb

I can't believe they study how much people eat during certain types of shows, when then again it makes sense for folks who decide what kinds of stuff to try to sell us.

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Mike OD - IF Life

Watching stressful TV will trigger some sort of adrenaline/cortisol response (fight or flight). You probably don't even know it...but it happens. Now cortisol can increase, cause cravings for sugar as it is a blood sugar balancing hormone (just in response to stress). Also if it is close to bed time then you go to sleep with a high cortisol curve and will shut down GH release during sleep and get poor sleep altogether. Hence why I never watch the news at night...and sleep just fine.

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anndy

Watching stressful TV will trigger some sort of adrenaline/cortisol response (fight or flight). You probably don't even know it...but it happens. Now cortisol can increase, cause cravings for sugar as it is a blood sugar balancing hormone (just in response to stress). Also if it is close to bed time then you go to sleep with a high cortisol curve and will shut down GH release during sleep and get poor sleep altogether. Hence why I never watch the news at night...and sleep just fine.

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