Whenever you are hoping to slim down try not to focus on the healthfulness of that low fat, low calorie salad you ate for lunch.

Every one who were asked to taste food described as healthy reported being hungrier afterward than people who ate the same food when it was described as tasty. Instructors conducted several experiments to explore the brunt of perceptions about the health content of food and how all it made a person feel.

The third group of students was asked to examine the bars and rate their hunger but they did not eat either bar and their hunger levels were about the same as students who ate the bar described as yummy or tasty  meaning that eating the healthy food in reality made them feel hungrier than if they hadn’t eaten a bar at all, the researchers said. For dieters a same decision-making process may be involved when they choose a salad instead of a burger and fries at a restaurant only to go home and eat a big dessert.

Connie Diekman is the director of university nutrition at Washington University in St. Louis Mo said the study shows that encouraging healthy eating is more complex than just telling people how many servings a day of fruits and vegetables they should eat.

The perception that healthy is not going to meet enjoyment goals is a very strong message for all of us Diekman said Healthy foods must taste good. Regrettably people assume they won’t taste good and even if it tastes good their brain may be telling them otherwise.