If you have a diet soda instead of a regular one, do you think that means you have more "room" for a big piece of cake? It sounds kind of crazy, doesn't it? Odds are the piece of cake would be more calories than the soda, and what does one thing have to do with the other anyway?

According to Brian Wansick PhD, author of Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think, that type of reasoning isn't unusual. In the Journal of Consumer Research, Wasnick states "We found that when people go to restaurants claiming to be healthy, such as Subway, they choose additional side items containing up to 131% more calories than when they go to restaurants like McDonald's, that don't make this claim."

So when we perceive a restaurant as being "healthy," we become more liberal in our choices -- potentially choosing more calories than we might have consumed at a restaurant with fewer healthy choices. Wansick calls habits like ordering cookies to go with your low-cal sub the "halo effect." While having cookies or other treats isn't necessarily a bad thing in and of itself, it's the fact that many people are consuming these calories mindlessly; they aren't viewing them as treats, but more of a regular item that they have made space for by eating foods that they perceive as healthy.

Remember, restaurants don't always tell the whole-truth-and-nothing-but about their nutrition information. Check out Bev's post and learn why it's more like the whole-lie-and-a-bigger-butt.