I decided to log eating outside of meals (breakfast, lunch, and dinner). I also included any additional drink consumption as well (excluding water). I tracked this behavior for 5 days, incorporating three weekdays and the weekend. In addition to gathering more data, I logged for this period of time because I thought it would be helpful to track across weekdays and the weekend.
I wanted to track this behavior for a couple reasons. First, I think eating outside of meals is a very unintentional habit for me. While I think it’s generally good to eat intuitively within reason, my gripe with this habit is that I often find myself overly stuffed. I’m not eating because I find myself really hungry, which only really happens during mealtimes (but I always eat a big lunch and dinner). I’ve also learned that eating during weird times can affect sleep, which is something I’m trying to prioritie this quarter. I’ve also been trying to cut down on unnecessary spending, and I’ve categorized buying snacks or treats as unnecessary. For each instance of the habit, I tracked what I ate, how I got the item I ate, and who I was with at the time.
Generally, this habit was pretty easy to track, as it wasn’t something that I needed to track that often, and it was generally memorable. Eating something usually took at least 10 mins, during which I would normally remember to log the experience.
Log
Thursday
- 7:40pm
- What I ate: Chocolate babka, salad, and mini-sandwich
- How I got it: Free food at a speaker event
- Who I was with: A group of 8+ friends
- 10:04pm:
- What I ate: Lemon sugar cookie
- How I got it: My friend & dorm mate gave it to me
- Who I was with: My friend Chelsea
Friday
- 4:13pm
- What I ate: Half a grilled cheese
- How I got it: Given to me for free by my boss at the Stanford farm
- Who I was with: My boss and my coworkers
- 8:55pm
- What I ate: Two cheese pizza slices
- How I got it: My dorm had it’s row signature event, and there was leftover pizza when I got there
- Who I was with: 40+ event attendees and my friends
- 10:11pm
- What I ate: A bagel half with sundried tomato cream cheese and a bagel half with peanut butter and bananas
- How I got it: My dorm’s available snacks
- Who I was with: A group of 6+ friends
Saturday
- 3:23pm
- What I ate: Cubano coffee with condensed milk ($7.90)
- How I got it: At a cafe in Pacifica after a hike
- Who I was with: 3 friends
- 8:01pm
- What I ate: Some salmon and some cabbage salad
- How I got it: Leftovers from dinner
- Who I was with: My friend Jenna
- 9:10pm
- What I ate: A bagel with peanut butter and bananas
- How I got it: My row house’s available snacks
- Who I was with: My friends Jenna and Julia
Sunday
- 7:57pm
- What I ate: Lemon sugar cookie
- How I got it: I asked my friends if they had any treats and my friend said I could take one from her room
- Who I was with: Alone
- 10:45pm
- What I ate: A box of french fries
- How I got it: Late Night at Lakeside Dining
- Who I was with: My roommate Emily
Monday
- 8:14pm
- What I ate: A slice of banana bred
- How I got it: Saved a leftover piece from my meal at another row house
- Who I was with: Alone
Models
Connection Circle
I first created a connection circle to get a sense of all the different factors involved in my habit of eating outside of meals. It was interesting to see areas where the connection circle got dense. I noticed that “wanting to have something to do with friends,” “wanting to distract myself,” and “going to my house’s kitchen” all had lots of arrows going in and out of them.
From this connection circle, I attempted to identify any noticeable loops, particularly from the dense clusters that I noticed. I discovered three distinct loops, which sometimes interconnected.
Connection Circle with Annotations
First was the social loop. I would be hanging out with friends, or get bored and find my friends. Hanging out with my friends led to eating outside of meals in several ways. First, they would offer me food that I would eat. Second, I would also spend time with my friends in the kitchen, which would lead to be being around free snacks that I would later eat. Third, hanging out with friends off campus often led to going to a cafe or food establishment of some sort, where I would inevitably buy food and eat it.
There was also a loop that would be initiated by myself. I’d be doing homework in my room, get bored, want to distract myself, and then go to the kitchen. There, I would usually be enticed by the availability of snacks, or see my friends eating and either want to eat because I saw them eating or get offered their food. My personal loop also connected to my social loop- once I got bored of homework, I would search for friends, which would ensnare me into the social loop.
The final loop I noticed was the accessibility loop. I realized that I didn’t really buy that much food- most of the food that I was eating outside of meals was free. I both had access to free food in my dorm and was offered free food at events and from friends. Anytime I was offered free food (which was surprisingly often), it was hard to resist. I suspect that it’s becuase I love free things, and it sometimes felt rude to turn down, especially if it was offered by a friend. Interestingly, I would only buy food when I was with others. When I was by myself, I only ever ate food outside of meals if it was free.
After drawing the connection circle, I also tried to reorganize these habits using a fishbone diagram. I found that this was helpful due to the different “categories” that the events leading up to me eating outside of meals tended to fall into.
Fishbone Diagram
Splitting the events into the various categories made me think about how to prevent the end habit. With three different main reasons for eating outside of meals, perhaps I would need three different strategies for stopping the habit. Stemming social, personal, and accessibility pressures to eat would all require different techniques.
I also noted that most of my eating outside of meal incidents happened at night. This was likely because I was often in my dorm after 6pm. All three event categories I noticed were at full force in my dorm after 6pm: I was surrounded by friends, I had easy access to the kitchen, and I always had plenty of homework to do that would make me bored.
What I Would Do Differently Next Time
Next time, I think it would also be interesting to log all the times I actually refrained from eating. Not only would it be validating for me, but it would also help me identify factors that actually helped me stop the habit. Logging this may be more difficult though. Eating was an easy thing for me to log, as it took a fair amount of time, and was usually a memorable experience. Not eating something, an event that usually takes no time, is much less so.
In order to stem this bad habit, I’ve come up with three behaviors to counteract the three main reasons I eat outside of meals. Socially, I can tell my friends to stop me from buying or eating snacks. Since I have friends available, I might as well use them to help hold me accountable. I’m hoping a social problem can have a social solution. For when I’m alone and bored, I’ve come up with a list of things I can do instead of eat, including reading, cleaning my room, and calling my parents.
I think the hardest loop to combat is the accessibility loop. How do I make eating free food harder? One strategy I was considering was to enact a fake “cost” to eating this food. I could do something like force myself to donate money to a cause every time I eat something free. I think enforcing that could be a challenge though, as I’m the only one really holding myself accountable to that.
