Linda Hagen, an assistant professor of marketing at the USC Marshall School of Business, and her coauthors conducted five experiments to test how serving yourself or having someone else serve you could affect how much you eat. The experiments also tested whether the nature of the food, i.e. “healthy” or “unhealthy,” made any difference (the scientists, acknowledging that such labels are subjective, polled college students to determine which foods were which).
“These results suggest that how much physical involvement is required to help oneself to food (less vs. more) may have quite a powerful effect,” the researchers wrote.
Read more: 4 Tips to Help You Keep Your Resolution To Eat Healthier and Lose Weight (Forbes)