Abstract
Faster eating has been identified as a risk factor for obesity and the current study tested whether eating rate is consistent within an individual and linked to energy intake across multiple meals. Measures of ad libitum intake, eating rate, and oral processing at the same or similar test meal were recorded on four non-consecutive days for 146 participants (117 male, 29 female) recruited across four separate studies. All the meals were video recorded, and oral processing behaviours were derived through behavioural coding. Eating behaviours showed good to excellent consistency across the meals (intra-class correlation coefficients > 0.76, p < 0.001) and participants who ate faster took larger bites (β ≥ 0.39, p < 0.001) and consistently consumed more energy, independent of meal palatability, sex, body composition and reported appetite (β ≥ 0.17, p ≤ 0.025). Importantly, eating faster at one meal predicted faster eating and increased energy intake at subsequent meals (β > 0.20, p < 0.05). Faster eating is relatively consistent within individuals and is predictive of faster eating and increased energy intake at subsequent similar meals consumed in a laboratory context, independent of individual differences in body composition.
Highlights
Fast eating has been identified as a risk factor for increased energy intake [1], obesity, and metabolic disease [2,3], and researchers have recommended eating slower to protect against excess food intake, by chewing more, taking smaller or fewer bites, and/or pausing in between mouthfuls [4,5,6,7,8]
While observational studies link self-reported fast eating to higher BMI and obesity risk [2,9,10,11,12], laboratory measures of actual eating behaviours suggest the relationship between oral processing and weight status is less clear
Fogel et al showed that faster eating in children was underpinned by larger bite size and less chewing per gram of food, independent of the child’s weight status [20], though children who ate faster did consume more energy at a single meal and were more likely to be classed as overweight
Summary
Fast eating has been identified as a risk factor for increased energy intake [1], obesity, and metabolic disease [2,3], and researchers have recommended eating slower to protect against excess food intake, by chewing more, taking smaller or fewer bites, and/or pausing in between mouthfuls [4,5,6,7,8]. While observational studies link self-reported fast eating to higher BMI and obesity risk [2,9,10,11,12], laboratory measures of actual eating behaviours suggest the relationship between oral processing and weight status is less clear. If faster eating is a risk factor for overweight, one prediction is that faster eating should be relatively consistent within an individual and linked to increased energy intake across multiple meals. Nutrition Research Centre (CNRC) to assess individual consistency in eating rate, oral processing behaviours, and food intake across multiple laboratory-based meals. Understanding whether eating behaviours measured at single eating occasion are likely to reflect eating behaviours at subsequent meals, within the context of the laboratory, has implications for a better understanding of the proposed relationship between oral processing behaviours, energy intake, and weight status
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