Eating while distracting yourself to make smaller meals?

In the conclusions of her study, an American researcher claims that eating at the same time as playing video games would make meals less important. A statement that remains to be nuanced.

The next time you see someone using their phone or computer while they eat, think about whether this practice may or may not help them lose weight. Research carried out by the University of Illinois (USA) has shown that the use of technological devices during the meal resides considerably in the quantity ingested. The results of this study have been published in the journal Journal of Nutrition.

Video games as a source of distraction

The study was conducted by Carli Liguori, during her master’s degree in food science and human nutrition at the University of Illinois. During her research, she observed 119 young adults as they consumed food while playing a computer game for 15 minutes. She found that the amount of food these participants ate was less than what they ate when they weren’t distracted by a computer.

For her experiment, Carli Liguori used a rapid visual information processing game, which is widely used by researchers to assess people for conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease and attention deficit disorder. This software tests users’ sustained visual attention and working memory. Participants had to press the spacebar each time they saw three consecutive odd numbers appear while the digits flashed randomly on the computer screen.

Before the experiment, Carli Liguori asked participants to fast for 10 hours, then invited them to consume up to ten mini-quiches at the same time as they played. The results were recorded while they played the game or ate without any distractions. To realize the quantity ingested by the participants, the researchers weighed and counted the food, in order to have precise data.

Carli Liguori explains why she chose to use an attention-based video game: “It’s simple enough but entertaining enough that you really have to watch it to make sure you don’t miss a number and mentally keep track. This was an important question for us at the beginning of the study: how to ensure that the participant is distracted? And this fast visual information processing game was a good solution for that.”

After a 30-minute rest period, participants were also asked to recall the number of quiches they had consumed. They were also asked to rate how much they enjoyed the food as well as their feelings of hunger and fullness.

Potentially biased results

Contrary to the prevalent hypothesis by previous studies, that people eat more when playing a video game but remember less well what they have consumed, Carli Liguori found that distracted by the video game , participants ate less and remembered less well what they had been served and what they had eaten.

She also found that participants who played video games ate less on both their first and second visits, while those who ate without distractions on their first visit ate less on their second visit.

Carli Liguori, who is a faculty member at the University of Pittsburgh, also explains: “Being distracted on their first visit did seem to change how much they consumed during the meal without distraction. There can be a powerful carry-over effect between the distraction mechanism and the novelty of the food served.”

During the study, the researcher acknowledged that more research was needed to determine if there could be a difference between distracted eating and mindless eating, terms that were often used interchangeably. The study indicates that consideration should be given to whether the two behaviors are distinct. According to her, while food inattention can be defined as eating without intention, food distraction can occur when individuals engage in a secondary activity, such as watching television or answering emails, while eating. deliberately.

However, Carli Liguori points out that the diversity study might have some limitations in terms of the types of entertainment used, the type of food served, and the use of university students as the study population. The participants’ age, ethnicity, food preferences and motivation to regulate their consumption were not taken into account when carrying out this study.