January 5, 2011 – People who eat while working or playing at their computer at lunchtime are more likely to snack during the day, which would encourage them to gain weight, concludes a small British study.
The study was conducted with 44 people. Twenty-two participants received a 9-course midday meal while playing a computer card game (Le Solitaire). The other participants were served the same menu without being subjected to this playful distraction. All participants were to take part in a cookie tasting 30 minutes after the end of their meal.
Results? Distracted participants felt less full than those who were able to eat without distraction, despite consuming the same amount of food. They even ate almost twice as many cookies (52 g) than non-distracted subjects (27 g.).
The act of playing while eating also had an influence on the participants’ memory. They struggled more than the others to remember the order of the dishes they had eaten, despite the fact that they were all named.
These results suggest that being distracted during a meal has the ability to influence the size of a subsequent meal and therefore the amount of food eaten. This effect on appetite is true for both men and women.
According to the study’s authors, distraction may limit a person’s ability to experience visceral sensations generated by ingestion, which translates into a lesser sense of fullness. Memory could thus play a role in the signals of satiety.
The present study therefore reveals a new mechanism by which sedentary activities spent in front of a screen can cause obesity. According to the researchers, their work is all the more relevant as today’s society values multitasking, that is, carrying out several tasks at the same time.
Louis M. Gagné – PasseportSanté.net
1 Oldham-Cooper RE, Hardman CA et al. Playing a computer game during lunch affects fullness, memory for lunch, and later snack intake, Am J Clin Nutr. 2010 Dec 8.
