Abstract
Ratings and proportions of two cookies eaten by obese and normal-weight individuals were affected by the requirement that subjects eat with their nonpreferred hands. Subjects were run in blocks either before or after dinner; it was only before dinner that strong preferences between the two cookies emerged. Normal weight subjects ate approximately equal proportions of the two cookies when using preferred hands but strongly favored the cashew cookie when using their nonpreferred hands. Obese subjects ate more of the cashew cookie when using the preferred hands but more of the oatmeal cookie when using nonpreferred hands. Also, subjects were given fictitious information about previous subjects' preferences between the cookies. Only the normal ones were affected by this information; the obese subjects ate more of the cashew cookie regardless of the “external” cue about other subjects' preferences.
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