Warning: Reading About Exercise Can Be Hazardous To Your Health

Whatever you do, don't read the poster below. Just scanning an entreaty to exercise, it seems, encourages the innocent to help themselves to another helping. It's true. Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign found that people who viewed posters suggesting that they “join a gym” or “take a walk” ate more food after looking at the posters than people who saw similarly designed posters prompting them to “make friends” or “be in a group.” Lead scientist and psychology professor Dolores Albarracín reports that study participants ate one-third more when exposed to the exercise ads, and those exposed to subliminal words about activity during a computer task ate about 20 percent more than those exposed to neutral words.
Read more from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.