#25 - Sixty adults were asked to keep a diary of their meals

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Resolve the Paradox-X. The correct answer choice is (E)

Here the author discusses a study of sixty adults who tracked their respective diets. It was found that when alcohol was served with the meal, participants consumed an average of 175 calories from sources other than alcohol. Since this is a Resolve X question, the four wrong answer choices will all provide a resolution to the paradox in the stimulus, and the incorrect answer will fail to resolve.

Answer choice (A) provides the explanation that alcohol tends to increase the time spent eating a meal, which would explain how people might then consume more calories. Answer choices (B), (C), and (D) all provide explanations as well: if meals with alcohol take place later, when people might eat more, or with more people, or are prepared with more care, we could understand why diners might, under these circumstances, choose to eat more calories.

Correct answer choice (E) is the only choice which provides no resolution for the paradox; since the stimulus specifies that participants consumed an average of 175 extra calories, the breakdown between carbs, fats, and proteins does not help to clear up the discrepancy. (again, since this is a Resolve X question, the correct answer choice is that which provides no resolution).

[Johnclem]

Hi powerscore ;
I seem to be having beef with this question .. particularly because I feel the answer choices are bringing outside information or simply do not resolve or explain the paradox.

QT: resolve the paradox X

People who had alcoholic beverages took in more calories compared to people who did not drink alcoholic beverages :

A) how does this answer choice resolve the raradox ? Am I not brining in outside knowldge that people who spend longer at dinners usually eat more ? I mean for all we know they could just be slow eaters .

D) Another answer choice in have been with ! How does meals that were carefully prepared or look pretty indicate calories consumed?

Thanks
John

[David Boyle]

Hi powerscore ;
I seem to be having beef with this question .. particularly because I feel the answer choices are bringing outside information or simply do not resolve or explain the paradox.

QT: resolve the paradox X

People who had alcoholic beverages took in more calories compared to people who did not drink alcoholic beverages :

A) how does this answer choice resolve the raradox ? Am I not brining in outside knowldge that people who spend longer at dinners usually eat more ? I mean for all we know they could just be slow eaters .

D) Another answer choice in have been with ! How does meals that were carefully prepared or look pretty indicate calories consumed?

Thanks
John

Hello John,

Since "Resolve" is in the Help Family, bringing in new info is not a problem.
As for answer A, it's o.k. to assume that if they're at the meal longer, they'll eat more. There could be slow eaters, but there could also be some very fast eaters.
As for answer D, well-prepared or "pretty" meals would tend to get more people to eat more, wouldn't they? The reverse, a badly-prepared or ugly meal, often gets people to run screaming out of the restaurant! So a nice meal would naturally tend to stimulate people's appetites.

Hope this helps,
David

[YOLOmom]

I really agree with John regarding this question. I got it correct, because answer choice E was a strong answer. But I really considered answer choice A. I really don't think there is a strong or obvious connection between spending a long time at a meal and eating more. I fee like when a group spend a long time at a meal it's usually because they're talking to each other a lot, not because they are eating more

[Robert Carroll]

YOLO,

More time spent at a meal certainly creates more opportunity to eat more. If I spend 10 minutes at a meal, I'm probably not able to get an appetizer or dessert. If I spend more time, I don't HAVE to eat more, but I have the opportunity to do so. So meals that are longer, ceteris paribus, are meals where more is eaten. If meal length and food-based caloric intake are positively correlated, and meal length and alcoholic intake are positively correlated (like answer choice (A) says), then the stimulus makes some sense. This demonstrates that answer choice (A) resolves the paradox.

I think the phrasing of answer choice (A) may thrown you off. It's easy to imagine simply spending longer at a meal, regardless of whether one eats more, and the phrasing of the answer seems to invite that interpretation. But answer choice (A) does not entail that the time spent at a meal had no effect on calories consumed. If we had no idea about people's eating habits and simply observed two variables - meal length and food calories consumed - it would be unsurprising to see a positively correlation. If someone then suggested "If you want to eat less at a meal, stay at the table for only five minutes. A study showed that people spending only five minutes at their meal ate significantly less than those who stayed for more than five minutes," that would be a distortion and misunderstanding of the findings. It ends up that those spending little time at a meal were probably already committed, for various reasons, to eating less. That doesn't mean the duration was a causal factor. It was merely correlated with eating habits. It's similarly easy to misunderstand answer choice (A) as relying on some sort of causal relation between meal duration and eating habits - that causal relation isn't necessary for answer choice (A) to resolve the paradox.

Robert Carroll