Posts Tagged ‘behavioral science’

O‌‌ne of the neat tricks of semaglutide and tirzepatide is their unexpected ability to shift the frames of bias through which we look at obesity and human behavior. Neuroscience and behavioral psychology have long told us the human desire for food is not purely a matter of choice. Yet in addressing obesity, weight bias and […]

All around us, we read mostly collegial (sometimes acrimonious) debates about how to do obesity and nutrition research right. Are randomized, controlled studies the best way to get definitive answers? What about nutritional epidemiology? Or animal studies? Some of these debates about methods and inferences are raucous. For a note of caution, we offer a […]

The closing day of YWM2019 began and ended with acceptance and commitment. First, Jason Lillis presented a brilliant session on using our own values to empower healthy changes. Then, at the end, attendees told their own true stories of acceptance and commitment to live their best lives. It was a perfect pair of bookends for […]

Pop neuroscience has an astounding assortment of people offering up observations about lighting up the brain when people see appealing food – or any other stimulus that makes their point. But connecting those dots to some real scientific insight comes a little more slowly. A new publication in Appetite does an excellent job of tying together some […]

A growing body of neuroscience research makes it clear that your brain is at war with itself when you try to reduce your weight through changes in eating and physical activity. Relying too much on the limited capacity of your brain’s executive functions for rational decision making can be a mistake. It is easily overwhelmed by […]

A fascinating new study indicates that wild mice were born to run — on an exercise wheel — just for the pure joy of it. Johanna Meijer and Yuri Robbers showed that running on an exercise wheel appeals to mice in the wild just as much as it does to lab mice in a cage. […]

Nudges for healthier behaviors can become rude shoves when practitioners of behavioral psychology cross a line and activate resistance in the people they are trying to influence. The story of behavioral scientists working with a supermarket chain to nudge people to healthier choices offers some good insights into fostering better choices. But it also elicits […]