Lying: Newest Trick for Healthy Diet

Please. Save me from people who've been told what to like and then like it.

-- George Carlin

July 11, 2008 -- Would you lie to your family to get them to eat healthier foods?

It just might work, shows a study led by famed false-memory researcher Elizabeth Loftus, PhD, distinguished professor of psychology and social behavior at the University of California, Irvine.

In two experiments involving 231 college students, Loftus and colleagues were able to convince half the participants that, as children, they had loved asparagus -- even though these students at first said they were pretty sure this was not true.

And this false memory had consequences. Compared to people without the false memory, these "believers" then said they liked asparagus better, wanted to eat asparagus more, were willing to pay more for asparagus, and found pictures of asparagus more appealing and less disgusting.

"All in all, we think this is kind of an intriguing prospect for influencing nutritional choices and moving people toward healthy foods or away from unhealthy foods," Loftus tells WebMD. "If you could refine this and get it ready for mass marketing, we might be on the brink of a new dieting technique."

The Loftus experiments were based on an elaborate ruse. Study participants were told that they were part of a study of food preferences and personality. They then completed a 24-item food-history questionnaire in which they reported how certain they were that they had various food experiences.

One of the items was "Loved asparagus the first time you tried it." Only those who were relatively confident this didn't happen were included in the study analysis. Participants were also given questionnaires in which they rated their desire to eat 32 different dishes (including asparagus), how likely they would be to order these dishes from a mock restaurant menu if they were out for a special dinner, and how much they would pay for foods in a grocery store. In a second, similar experiment, participants also rated how appetizing or disgusting they found certain photographs of foods (including a bunch of asparagus).

A week later, participants came back for "feedback" on their responses. They were told that a sophisticated computer program had generated an analysis of their early childhood food experiences. Half of the participants were told -- falsely -- that as children they loved to eat cooked asparagus.

Participants were then questioned about the settings and experiences they remembered regarding these childhood food experiences. In each of the two experiments, about half of the students falsely believed or falsely remembered they had loved asparagus as children.

"We got a number of people to buy into this suggestion and to elaborate on it, and those people now want to eat asparagus more," Loftus says.

In earlier experiments, Loftus and colleagues used similar ruses to make people believe that foods such as hard-boiled eggs, dill pickles, or strawberry ice cream had made them ill as children. As a result, they were less likely to eat these foods. Now the new studies show it's possible to plant false memories that drive people to choose foods instead of to reject them.