Impulse shopping and eating can sabotage your healthy eating efforts in the blink of an eye. And it may not be entirely your fault… but understanding why it happens can help you prevent it.
We’ve all gone into the grocery store with our lists filled with fresh produce and come out with a bag of chips and a gallon of ice cream — They were on sale! Most shoppers regret these purchases but they feel powerless to stop them. That’s because grocery stores are making it difficult for you to resist on purpose. They way stores are arranged — the product placement and food displays — are designed to get you to buy more. What you see the most or look at the longest is the strongest predictor of what you will end up buying. And since you can fully control what you see once you walk into the store, they can use that fact to their advantage.
Here are some tips to avoid impulse buying:
- Stick to your list. Even if something is on sale, if it isn’t on your list, it isn’t going in your cart. You can create your list at home when you’re more able to make healthy choices.
- Shop the perimeter of the store. All the fresh foods are located on the edges of grocery stores. All of the processed foods are found in the interior. Shop the perimeter as much as possible and only go into an aisle if there is something on your list that you need.
- Don’t make checkout lane purchases. This is the ultimate advertising effort by the store to get you to buy more. And oftentimes this is where the candy, chips and soda are located.
source: http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/10/impulse-buying-isnt-entirely-your-fault/
