Low-Fat Might Mean More Chips

Think you’re doing yourself a favor by loading the grocery cart with foods advertised as low-fat, light or diet? A Dutch study published in the International Journal of Research in Marketing suggests those options might actually be contributing to not only single occasion overeating, but long-term over-consumption.
 
Using scanner data on store purchases, researchers tracked the buying habits of 311 households for a year before and a year after the first purchase of low-fat chips. They found a significant increase in the quantity of low-fat chips bought in the first month, and that trend continued long-term. This brings new meaning to the phrase less is more.