Is it easier for you to remember where to find chocolate in the shop than where to find fruit or yoghurt?
According to researchers at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, it’s no wonder! They found that this is due to how our spatial memory works.
They asked more than 500 participants to walk through a maze-like space while encountering and tasting various foods, including apples, crisps, carrots and cakes. Interestingly, the participants were almost 30% better at remembering the location of calorie-dense foods – regardless of whether they liked it or not!
The researchers suggest that this is an evolutionary result of, as over millions of years it was a matter of life and death to remember where to find high-calorie food.
Genetically coded working of the brain like this was immensely useful for the caveman, but it is no longer helping us in today’s word full of ‘food temptations’.
Fortunately, with the help of our conscious brain we can work on the right habits to overcome the built-in mechanism and to build habits that are more supportive to our goals in life.
To find out how exactly you can do that, read the ‘Habit Shaper’ section in the ME MAP YOUNG ADULTS book and use the tools and approaches offered.
