Monday, August 27, 2007
Food & Life Chubby chimps learn self control
Posted by Cliff Bostock @cliffbostock on Mon, Aug 27, 2007 at 8:22 PM
Trouble staying on your diet?
Take a tip from chimpanzees. This is from DailyIndia.com:
Chimps struggling to accumulate a large quantity of food deliberately keep themselves busy to avoid the temptation to gorge themselves straight away, a new study by primatologists from Georgia State University in Atlanta has revealed.
The experiment allowed the chimps to learn that the longer they were abstinent, the more candy would be vended to them from a hollow tube. The scientists gave the chimps toys and they picked them up to distract themselves:
"We chose a set of items they are known to have an interest in. They enjoy brushing their teeth, for example; we gave them magazines so they could look at the pictures; and they enjoy different types of fasteners, zips and clips that they can take apart," said study co-author Theodore Evans.Evans and his colleague Michael Beran found that the chimps resisted going for the accumulating candies for longer when given access to the toys, showing that play did indeed take their minds off food.
So get yourself a toy toothbrush, an Enquirer and a zipper and watch those pounds melt away.
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