Social Facilitation Of Food: Why We Eat More With Friends
It is easy to realize that we usually eat more when we do it in the company of friends compared to when we are alone.
But what is the underlying phenomenon? With this article we will discover What is social facilitation of food? what is its explanation, in which circumstances it has more effect and in which, on the contrary, it is attenuated.
Social facilitation of eating is the psychological phenomenon by which The fact of being accompanied by friends, family or acquaintances while we eat causes us to have a certain tendency to eat more food regarding what we would do if we found ourselves alone or in the company of strangers. According to this principle, while we are alone, we will eat light meals or in any case less copious meals than we would if we were surrounded by people in our circle.
Perhaps the reader is surprised and even against the hypothesis of social facilitation of food, but we only have to remember and think about what (or how much) we had for dinner the last time we did it in the company of a group of friends, and make the comparison with what we usually eat on any given night with the only company of ourselves, at our home (if we live alone).
In fact, the studies carried out in this regard have even managed to capture in a figure the difference in intake that occurs between the two situations. According to these conclusions, we would be eating 48% more than usual when we do it in the shelter of a group of friends Various explanations have been given in this regard that attempt to find the logic behind the social facilitation of food. We will explore some of them in the following points.
In 2019, the Faculty of Psychology at the University of Birmingham, led by Dr. Helen Ruddock, published a meta-study in which data from 42 previous studies on the social facilitation of eating were compiled. This research represented a great enrichment around this concept and has allowed us to know in greater depth what its characteristics are.
Evolutionary hypothesis: the equitable distribution of limited resources
A curious explanation of this phenomenon is evolutionary in nature. According to this theory, the social facilitation of eating It would have its origin in the way of eating that human beings showed in the Paleolithic and Mesolithic era, that is, when societies were hunters and gatherers. In this context, food was scarce and several meals a day were by no means guaranteed (sometimes not even one).
Given such hostile conditions, obtaining food for the group became a social event for the entire tribe, and everyone ate together, as much as they could, since they did not know when would be the next time they would have the opportunity to obtain prey. or collect enough fruits that would allow them to nourish themselves again, sharing the experience as a group.
It could be a social event or simply the intention to eat the largest possible portion of the available food before others ate it, since we are talking about a situation in which said food was extremely scarce and access to it, therefore, it was very restricted. The logical thing is to think that, when faced with a source of nutrition, the individual would try to acquire the maximum amount in the shortest possible time, since once it was exhausted, he would not know when he would find more.
Therefore, the evolutionary hypothesis would explain the social facilitation of food as a behavior that would have been somehow imprinted in our unconscious behavioral tendencies and that would take us back to a bygone era in which eating in groups was synonymous with trying to satisfy oneself to overcome the period of hunger that would follow and in which we would not know how long it could last.
Eating in the company of strangers
However, it is not enough to be in a group, eating with other human beings, for the social facilitation effect of food to automatically appear. There is a detail that is key, and that is that These people must be close to us, since otherwise, the effect does not appear. In these cases, precisely the opposite phenomenon occurs, and that is that people tend not to eat much to convey a more positive image.
This may be because we try to show an image that is too impulsive, and in the culinary context we want to make it clear, when we are in front of strangers, that we are capable of controlling ourselves and eating only what is necessary, without falling into excess. Besides, This effect is especially observed in some groups as studies carried out in this regard have shown.
The first of them would be that of women who eat with unknown men, compared to the reverse case. The data shows that They worry more than they do about controlling their food intake Although the explanation is not clear, one hypothesis suggests that what this behavior would seek would be unconscious approval from its hosts, due to its evident control over impulses.
The second case in which we can observe the opposite phenomenon to the social facilitation of food is in that of overweight people who eat accompanied by other individuals with whom they do not have a close bond (which is the key to making this happen). As in the previous case, what research finds is that these people tend to eat significantly less food than when they are in the company of their closest group.
Therefore, what would be deduced is that there are some groups, such as women and people with obesity (and perhaps others that have not yet been considered in the studies carried out to date) where stereotypes, fear of being judged and other variables, would be having more weight in generating an attitude towards food than the social facilitation of food itself.
The problem of social facilitation of food today
However, what in ancient times could have been a very efficient system to ensure that no member of the tribe went hungry when food was available, today would be causing a new problem. And the social facilitation of food could be very useful when food resources were limited but today, where we can find all the food we want at any time, the situation is very different.
What we find today is a context in which leisure lunches and dinners in the company of family and friends are synonymous with celebration and usually with dietary excesses. There are frequent meetings in which the attendees, amidst laughter and conversations, do not stop eating starters, main dishes, desserts and a large number of drinks, creating an amount of calories that is extremely higher than necessary.
If it is an isolated event, it may not be a problem, beyond a more than safe heavy digestion (or a good hangover, if the excess has also gone through alcoholic means). However, if these meetings become a regular occurrence throughout the week, it is most likely that we will begin to suffer the consequences in our body, which may affect our body mass index, but also our metabolism or our cholesterol.
If we find ourselves mired in this type of dynamic, it is best to be aware of it and limit our intake to what our body needs, trying to cope with the impulse of social facilitation of food. Of course, this behavior can (and should) be accompanied by healthy physical exercise routines, even if they only consist of having a habit of going for a walk every day.
What we must avoid at all costs is falling into a state of habitual sedentary lifestyle, because if we are in the habit of attending lunches and dinners with our friends, the social facilitation of food can thereby establish a lethal combination for our health.
Behavior in other species
The study of social facilitation of eating has not been limited to humans. Some works have focused on observe feeding behaviors in species as diverse as rats or chickens, among other. This phenomenon has also been observed in them, and has given rise to different hypotheses about the function it could be fulfilling in them.
Some researchers suggest that in these individuals, when eating in a group, an internal confrontation would occur. The reasoning would be that, on the one hand, they would tend to get all the food possible, before the rest did the same, but on the other hand, they would try to contain themselves so as not to be “singled out” by their peers and therefore isolated from the group.
