REACHING for a slice of cake on a whim may make you think you lack willpower.
But instead of blaming yourself, curse the person next to you who had a slice first. A study has revealed that seeing someone else snacking influences us more than our resolve to be healthy.
Being in a bad mood and having unhealthy snacks in easy reach are also among the biggest reasons why we might give in. Surprisingly, according to the Australian researchers, the intention to eat healthily has very little impact on our decisions.
The authors, writing in the British Journal of Health Psychology, state: The results demonstrate that snacking is largely guided by momentary cues and that motivational-level factors may be less important in guiding snacking than previously thought.'
The researchers asked 81 adults to keep a two-week food diary. The adults, mostly women of a normal to obese weight, recorded whether snacks were available, if they were in a bad mood and if they could see others eating.
These factors were found to influence their decision to snack. But their self-regulation skills, recorded in a questionnaire before the study, were not statistically significant and neither was their intention to eat well.
© Daily Mail