Does lunch in front of a computer make us eat more?
Posted On December 20, 2010
The answer is YES, and here’s why.
Mindless, distracted eating creates overconsumption.
For years, people have noticed how (in healthy cultures) their focus on the food itself helps to improve both the quality (it goes up) and the quantity (it goes down) of the food consumed.
Now, researchers have found that those who ate lunch while playing a computer game ended up eating more later than those who’d had their lunch with no distractions.
Why Does Mindless Eating Lead To Overeating?
Researchers say it has to do with memory. The computer users had a fuzzier memory of their lunch and felt less full afterward compared with the computer-free lunch group.
“We think that memory for recent meals influences the amount of food that we select and then consume at a subsequent meal,” researcher Jeffrey M. Brunstrom, of the University of Bristol in the UK. “When our memory is poor,” he said, “then at a subsequent meal we tend to select and consume a greater amount of food.”
This Is Not About Your Cookies
In fact, past research has shown that people eat more when they’re in front of a TV instead of at the kitchen table. Think of it like the “popcorn effect”. If you have a tub o’ popcorn at a movie, you’ll eat your way to the bottom before you know it because you’re distracted by the film.
“We know from several studies that distraction can increase the amount that people consume in a meal,” Brunstrom said. “Here, we extend this finding to show that the effects of distraction last beyond a meal.“
The study is published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
For more information: Click here to visit Will Clower’s website.
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