A new study from Cornell University has found that the mess on your kitchen counter may be an indicator of more than just your level of tidiness—it can also reveal information about your health, or more specifically, your weight.
The researchers photographed over 200 kitchens in Syracuse, New York, and recorded the weight of the homes’ inhabitants.
Focusing on adult women, the study, published in the journal Health Education and Behavior, showed that women who kept fresh fruit on the counter were the most likely to have a “normal” weight compared to their peers. Cereal and soda kept out in the open, however, correlated with a much-increased weight. Cereal on the counter correlated with a weight increase of 20 pounds above average, and soft drinks with a weight of 24 to 26 pounds more than women who kept sugary drinks off the counter, Futurity reports.
“It’s your basic See-Food Diet—you eat what you see,” said pun master Brian Wansink, director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab and lead author of the study.
“As a cereal-lover, that shocked me,” he added. “Cereal has a health-halo, but if you eat a handful every time you walk by, it’s not going to make you skinny.”
So how can you curtail this? Simple: Put away the junk food. It’s okay to have it around, but if it’s the first thing you see when you enter the kitchen, you’re going to want to eat it. Instead, keep fruits out in the open. The study found that those who had a visible fruit bowl on the counter tended to weigh 13 pounds less than their neighbors who didn’t.
Our solution is to just get a fruit bowl, ya dingus!
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Feature Image: Thinkstock
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