You might have heard the advice not to go shopping on an empty stomach. Let's find out why that's a good idea. Here's a simple explanation:

Imagine you're hungry and you go shopping. Research done by a person named Norbert Schwarz, who studies psychology and marketing, found something interesting. If you shop when you're hungry, you're likely to buy more things, especially those small binder clips you might need. This is different from when you shop after having lunch (1).

Another group of researchers from the University of Minnesota studied this too. They discovered that feeling hungry makes you want to buy more things, not just food. In one test, people who were hungry asked for 70% more items to try than people who weren't hungry. Another test showed that hungry people actually spent 64% more money and bought 88% more things (2).


So, when you're really hungry, you might end up spending more money and buying more stuff you didn't plan on buying. To prove this, researchers even talked to people leaving a big store. They asked them how hungry they were and looked at their shopping receipts. They found that the hungry people spent 64% more money and bought more non-food things compared to people who weren't as hungry. This was true even when they considered things like how the person was feeling and how long they stayed in the store (1).

In the end, being hungry can make you spend more money on things you don't really need. That's why it's a good idea to eat something before you go shopping!

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References

  1. Bell, S. (2021) Are you hungry? best to eat first and shop later, study finds, USC News. Available at: https://news.usc.edu/78755/are-you-hungry-best-to-eat-first-and-shop-later-study-finds/ (Accessed: 17 August 2023). Slowikowska), K.N. (Kasia (no date) 
  2. Hungry customers spend more money, LinkedIn. Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/hungry-customers-spend-more-money-kasia-slowikowska-/ (Accessed: 17 August 2023).