This article looks at the effects of choosing your post-exercise snack before vs. after exercise
What’s the deal?
You’ve just exercised, so you can treat yourself with a tasty snack, right? Should it be healthy, or is it OK to indulge? If you want to be healthy, how can you make that choice easier?
What did they do?
256 participants were recruited on their way into a sports centre. They were given an accelerometer to wear and told to complete their planned exercise activity as normal. As a reward for taking part, participants were given a choice of a snack to eat for after exercise, either an apple or a brownie (or they could choose neither). Half of the participants were given this choice before their exercise activity and the other half given this choice after their exercise activity.
What happened?
If participants were given the choice of snack before exercise, 74% chose the apple and 14% chose the brownie. If participants were given the choice of snack after exercise, only 55% chose the apple and now 20% chose the brownie. The remaining participants declined a snack. Importantly, these results suggest that people are less likely to choose a healthy snack after the completion of exercise.
What can you tell me about the people?
Participants had an average age of 22 years and 52% of participants were male. The average BMI was 24.7 (at the upper end of the healthy range), but there was a large range of individual health and fitness levels.
What else should I know?
The accelerometer was given as a distraction to hide the real experiment from participants. Interestingly, there was also an increase in the amount of people who declined a snack when given the choice after exercise.
What will I do differently?
I first noticed this effect in about 2015. Granola bars (or similar pseudo healthy bars) were frequently given out at the end of races and events, which I hated the taste of. After the race however, despite craving a burger, I was often so desperate to eat that I would literally have anything, sometimes two granola bars! I like to try new products, but sometimes they are horrible. To avoid wasting food, I now regularly pack my least favourite (pseudo healthy) snacks for consumption after training runs!
Acknowledgements
This research was published in December 2018 by CR Gustafson and colleagues from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA.
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Abstract Athlete 