doi: 10.1177/0013916516628178 
 
 foodandbrandlab@cornell.edu 
 
 Cluttered and chaotic environments can cause stress, which can lead us to grab more of the indulgent snacks-- twice as many cookies according to this new study! The study conducted at the Cornell Food and Brand Lab in Ithaca, NY, found that cluttered kitchens cause stress and lead women to consume more calories. When stressed out females were asked to wait for another person in a messy kitchen -- with newspapers on the table, dishes in the sink, and the phone ringing -- they ate twice as many cookies compared to women in the same kitchen when it was organized and quiet. They consumed 53 more calories from cookies in just 10 minutes, the study found. "Being in a chaotic environment and feeling out of control is bad for diets. It seems to lead people to think, 'Everything else is out of control, so why shouldn't I be?'" It seems to lead people to think, ‘Everything else is out of control, so why shouldn’t I be?’” says lead author Lenny Vartanian, PhD., now Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of New South Wales in Australia. Half of the 98 females participating in the study waited in a cluttered kitchen with scattered piles of papers and dirty dishes, while the other half waited in an organized kitchen. Interestingly, a messy kitchen and a chaotic environment did not make the women eat more crackers or carrots, the study noted. Researchers also asked some participants to think and write about a time when their life was out of control, while others were asked to write about a time when they felt totally in control. In the cluttered kitchen, the scientists also found that women who wrote about a time when they felt in control consumed fewer calories from cookies (averaging 38 calories) than did the women who wrote about a time when they were out of control. "Although meditation, as a way of feeling in control, might be one way to resist kitchen snacking for some, it's probably easier just to keep our kitchens picked up and cleaned up," said coauthor Brian Wansink, Director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab and author of Slim by Design.
– Research has already suggested that people in neat work environments are more likely to opt for a healthy snack than people in cluttered ones. "Messy rooms are, sort of, enabling people to break free from what's expected of them," one researcher from that 2013 study tells NPR. Now a new study out of Cornell University finds a similar effect in kitchens—namely, that people tend to eat more in cluttered ones than orderly ones. "Being in a chaotic environment ... seems to lead people to think, 'Everything else is out of control, so why shouldn't I be?'" says lead author Lenny Vartanian in a press release. To test this, his team introduced 101 women, one at a time, into a messy or tidy kitchen, and asked some to write about a time when they felt in control and others to write about a time when they felt out of control. The same snacks were available in both kitchens: cookies, crackers, and carrots. Those in messy kitchens who wrote about feeling out of control ate 103 calories' worth of cookies, double what their clean-kitchen counterparts with the same writing assignment ate. Those in the messy kitchens who wrote about being in control ate just 38 calories of cookies. "The chaotic environment had no impact on consumption of crackers or carrots," the researchers write in the study, published this month in Environment and Behavior. While certain practices such as meditation may help get us in an in-control mindset, just picking up after ourselves could go a long way, co-author Brian Wansink tells CTV News. (Guys, meanwhile, overeat in the presence of one type of person in particular.)