We all want to:
- create the healthy behaviors that can
- create healthy outcomes that can
- create more productive employees.
One of the largest drivers of unhealthy outcomes is obesity. Long term solutions for this issue have been elusive, but lifestyle strategies are now gaining research support.
But don’t get too excited. There’s a caveat (isn’t there always!).
Let’s start with the good news. HOW you eat, can determine HOW MUCH you’re hungry for. This, in turn can contribute to obesity. It’s good news because that means we can train healthy eating behaviors, leading to long term health improvements.
Score!
That’s the theory anyway. But how does it hold up if you were to actually test it?
These scientists performed a systematic and exhaustive review (reference below) with a “meta-analysis of epidemiological studies to provide a reliable close estimate of the association between eating rate and obesity.”
In other words, this study of all studies assessed whether others have consistently found a link between eating pace and obesity.
Data from 23 published studies found that (across all these populations) those who ate quickly were statistically more likely to be obese than those who ate more slowly.
How Does This Make Sense?
In over 15,000 subjects who have run through our eating behavior change program, we confirm the same finding in a corporate setting.
Slower eating leads to substantially smaller portions at the plate (range = from one-half to one-third reduction).
A potential mechanism to explain this result may be that delayed satiety signals from the gut are allowed to reach the brain before over-consumption happens. Logically then, that can help curtail hunger, and so calories, and so weight.
Viola!
How Does This NOT Make Sense?
I love this study and we see the validation for the concept in the real world. BUT, it’s only a correlation.
In other words, those who ate faster tended to be heavier. While this makes sense, and there’s even a mechanism to explain it, there could be something else that ALSO explains this relationship.
For example, in the 1950s, someone found a correlation between coffee drinking and cancer. Those who drink coffee are more likely to get cancer. But what were coffee drinkers in the 1950s also doing? Smoking. Once smoking was factored out, the cancer linkage went away (see graphic below).
The Bottom Line for Your Bottom Lines
The result of this study (Pace Controls Portions) is not yet proven to scientific standards. But that doesn’t mean you should wait on them to come to consensus before taking advantage of the effect we all probably agree is going on here.
It costs us nothing to give this a shot for ourselves to see the impact on our hunger, and so calories, and so weight. And the best part about learning healthy eating behaviors is that the effect is a long term lifestyle.
Good luck, you got this!
Association between eating rate and obesity: a systematic review and meta-analysis
International Journal of Obesity (25 May 2015) | :10.1038/ijo.2015.96
