A research paper published today by University of Southern California (USC) claims to explain why many people with bad eating habits continue to eat unhealthy foods – even when the food doesn’t taste good. The researchers gave people about to enter a cinema a bucket of either just-popped, fresh popcorn or stale, week-old popcorn. Those who didn’t usually eat popcorn at the cinema ate much less stale popcorn than fresh popcorn. But those who indicated that they typically had popcorn at the... ...Read more »

Women are much more likely to be persuaded to either eat healthily or undertake dangerous dieting by other women, rather than men, according to new research from The Australian National University. The research by PhD student Tegan Cruwys, released during National Psychology Week, found that both healthy and unhealthy messages delivered by men had little effect on the female participants. Additionally, she found that when a healthy eating message is delivered by someone women identify with, it was... ...Read more »

A new study from the UK has suggested that British supermarkets are more often rounding up their prices to the nearest pound, breaking away from one of the traditional tricks of the trade. Price comparison website mySupermarket.co.uk researched prices at the leading UK grocery chains and discovered that rounding up to the nearest pound or 50 pence was becoming commonplace. For example, a small packet of tuna pate at Sainsbury’s rose from 99 pence to £1 between 2008 and 2009, while half a dozen... ...Read more »