--- title: How Too Much Food Variety is Making Us Chubbier description: A new study suggests having so much variety may be causing us to overeat. canonical: https://time.com/3847553/the-weird-thing-that-packs-on-calories-and-pounds/ author: Alexandra Sifferlin article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-05-05T20:40:27.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:59:19.132Z article:section: Health og:title: The Weird Thing That Packs on Calories—And Pounds og:description: A new study suggests having so much variety may be causing us to overeat. og:url: https://time.com/3847553/the-weird-thing-that-packs-on-calories-and-pounds/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltade140af54048173/6987ee7ee53aba4bee4dbb2d/pizza.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5100 og:image:height: 2869 og:image:alt: 141481831 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Weird Thing That Packs on Calories—And Pounds twitter:description: A new study suggests having so much variety may be causing us to overeat. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltade140af54048173/6987ee7ee53aba4bee4dbb2d/pizza.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Weird Thing That Packs on Calories—And Pounds > Sponsored content. 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Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ## Video: Should I Eat Pizza? [Watch (HLS stream): Should I Eat Pizza?](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/NvpgAWn5.m3u8) (1:39)  _Published 2015-02-12. You might be surprised that four out of five health experts give pizza the thumbs up. But don’t be fooled: these are not greasy thumbs._ by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin May 5, 2015 8:40 PM UTC  Close up of pizza, Teen diet, UK Close up of pizza, Teen diet, UKGetty Images by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin May 5, 2015 8:40 PM UTC A quick trip down the frozen-food aisle at the supermarket can be anxiety-ridden. Given the sheer range of options for everything from popcorn to cereal to tomato soup, it’s tough to know what to buy (if you’re not going based on cost alone). Now, a [new study](http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0125869) suggests having so much variety may be wreaking havoc on our waistlines. The new study, published in the journal _PLOS ONE_, shows having so many different brands of the same food may be making us overeat. The researchers asked people nearly 200 people about their consumption of pepperoni pizza. In the study, there were over 70 different pepperoni pizza brands consumed, and the calorie content varied by well over 300%. The researchers then compared the eating habits of people who regularly ate multiple varieties of pizza to people who only regularly consumed the same brand. The researchers found that the people who ate multiple brands of pizza were more likely to view pizza as less filling compared to people who ate one brand, and they were more likely to overeat when they were eating pizza to avoid being hungry later, suggesting they were unable to accurately compensate for the calories they were consuming on a given day. “It would appear that this high variability of food items makes it more difficult for people to learn about food and manage their consumption which exposes a new feature of Western diets and which has potential public health implications,” study author Charlotte Hardman, a lecturer in the Department of Psychological Sciences at the University of Liverpool [said in a statement](http://www.eurekalert.org/pub%5Freleases/2015-04/uol-iit043015.php). The findings suggest that having so many options may distort people’s perception of how filling a given food is. Historically, our ability to regulate our own expectations of food satiety was based on sensory experiences with that food. The researchers suggest that the influx of brands for foods that have the same taste, but not necessarily the same calories, may be throwing us off. 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