If you’re concerned about gaining weight over the upcoming holiday season, consider eating more slowly and you might consume less, a study suggests.
Diet experts have been touting this advice for years, and now nutrition scientists at the University of Rhode Island have some new data to back it up.
They had 30 normal-weight, college-age women come into a laboratory for lunch on two separate occasions. Each time, the women were offered a huge plate of pasta with tomato-vegetable sauce and grated parmesan cheese, plus a glass of water.
They were asked to eat until the point of comfortable fullness. On one occasion, they were instructed to eat as quickly as they could; on the other occasion they ate slowly and put down their spoons between bites.
They did not know the food and water was weighed before and after the meal to determine the amount consumed.
Findings:
•When eating quickly, the women consumed 646 calories in about nine minutes.
•When eating more slowly, they had an average of 579 calories in about 29 minutes.
“They ate 67 calories more in nine minutes than they did in 29 minutes,” says lead researcher Kathleen Melanson, director of the university’s Energy Metabolism Laboratory. “If you add that up over three meals a day, that’s a big difference in calories.”
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Upon completion of the meal and an hour afterward, the women were less satisfied and hungrier when eating quickly compared with when they ate slowly, she says. They said they enjoyed the meal more when they were taking their time.
Not surprisingly, the women drank more water when they ate more slowly, and researchers are doing a follow-up study on whether that factor contributed to their feeling of fullness.
One way to help control calorie intake during Thanksgiving “is to slow down and savor and enjoy your food more,” Melanson says.
“Put down the fork between bites and take time to have a conversation and linger over the meal,” she says.
But Barbara Rolls, a nutrition professor at Pennsylvania State University, says another study showed that people who paused between bites actually consumed more food during a meal.
“Eating rate is hard to change, so eat at a pace that maximizes your enjoyment of the food,” Rolls says. “If slowing down and savoring the flavors and textures of foods leaves you feeling more satisfied, go for it.”
Still, there are reasons not to stuff yourself too quickly at the Thanksgiving feast.
“Satiety signals take time to be experienced, so after you have eaten an amount of food that should be satisfying, you may want to wait 15 to 20 minutes before deciding if you are still hungry,” Rolls says.
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2006-11-16 12:50:19
