Eating slowly helps keep you skinny (if you’re already skinny)

Eating slowly helps keep you skinny (if you’re already skinny)

Eating slower might not be a magic bullet for fat loss, but it still leads to greater satisfaction

America, home of the free and land of the brave, is also the domain of the fat. The very, very fat. Obesity rates have climbed over 21% since 1974, with over one third of Americans classified as obese. Part of the problem, researchers believe, is excessive energy consumption, also known as “eating way too much.” A new study by Texas Christian University researchers suggests that the rate at which we consume calories affects our ability to process intake. Slower eating, it seems, makes it easier to control caloric consumption.

There’s just one catch: It only works for those who were thin to begin with.

In order to learn more about the relationship between eating speed and calorie absorption, the investigators collected data on feelings of hunger and fullness before and after the fast-paced and slow-paced meals and water consumption during the meals. They studied both “normal” weight and obese subjects.

They asked a group of normal-weight subjects and a group of overweight or obese subjects to consume two meals in a controlled environment. All subjects ate one meal at a slow speed, for which they were instructed to imagine that they had all the time in the world, and to take smaller bites with pauses between them. The second meal was consumed at a fast speed, where they were instructed to eat as quickly as possible.

The results? Slowing down had a significant impact on calorie absorption, provided the subject was already at a normal weight. Thinner subjects saw an 88 kcal decrease, versus just 58 kcal for the heavier group.

“Slowing the speed of eating led to a significant reduction in energy intake in the normal-weight group, but not in the overweight or obese group. A lack of statistical significance in the overweight and obese group may be partly due to the fact that they consumed less food during both eating conditions compared to the normal-weight subjects,” explained Meena Shah, PhD, professor in the Department of Kinesiology at Texas Christian University. “It is possible that the overweight and obese subjects felt more self-conscious, and thus ate less during the study.”

So, all is not lost. Eating slower will help cut calories, provided you’re not already cutting calories to begin with. The self-consciousness angle is merely conjecture, but certainly reasonable.

Caloric differences aside, Shah noted that regardless of weight, eating slower lead to a greater sensation of satiety earlier in the meal.

“In both groups, ratings of hunger were significantly lower at 60 minutes from when the meal began during the slow compared to the fast eating condition,” added Dr. Shah. “These results indicate that greater hunger suppression among both groups could be expected from a meal that is consumed more slowly.”

Enjoyment of a meal is a large factor in perceived satisfaction, so this research should still be taken as indication that slowing down while eating is never a bad thing, even if it’s not a “magic bullet” for weight loss. As information builds about how different weight groups consume food, the findings may be used to help craft more successful eating strategies to combat obesity.

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