Distraction, the desire to eat and an expanded model of mindless eating (original) (raw)
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Distraction, restrained eating and food intake: an experimental study of 'eating on the go'
To assess the impact of distraction on subsequent eating, 60 females consumed a cereal bar while watching TV, walking or talking, and their subsequent desire to eat and food intake were assessed. No effects were found for desire to eat. But while those higher in restrained eating consumed less overall and fewer calories after watching TV or talking, they consumed more overall and more calories (specifically five times more chocolate) if the cereal bar was eaten while walking. 'Eating on the go' may disinhibit restrained eaters either as a form of distraction or by offering a justification to overeat.
Effects of distraction on the development of satiety
British Journal of Nutrition, 2006
Two experiments explored the hypothesis that distraction causes a reduced sensitivity to the physiological and sensory cues that signal when to terminate a meal. In Experiment 1, eighty-eight females ate five 'Jaffa Cakes' either while distracted by a computer game or while sitting in silence. Analysis of the difference in rated hunger, fullness and desire to eat (pre-to post-intake) revealed that distracted participants experienced smaller changes in their desire to eat and fullness than did non-distracted participants. Experiment 2 assessed whether changes in ratings are attenuated because sensory-specific satiety (or a related process) fails to develop. Using a similar procedure, eighty-four females provided desire to eat, pleasantness and intensity ratings for Jaffa Cakes and for two 'uneaten' foods, both before and at three time-points after consuming five Jaffa Cakes. Non-distracted participants reported a reduction in their desire to eat the eaten food relative to the uneaten food (food-specific satiety), whereas distracted participants maintained a desire to eat all foods. Moreover, this difference between distracted and non-distracted participants was evident 5 and 10 min after the eating episode had terminated. The present findings invite speculation that distraction attenuates the development of sensory-specific satiety, and that this effect persists (at least for a brief period) after the distractor has terminated. More generally, this kind of phenomenon warrants further scrutiny because it holds the potential to contribute towards overeating, either by prolonging an eating episode or by reducing the interval between meals.
Situational effects on meal intake: A comparison of eating alone and eating with others
Physiology & Behavior, 2006
Eating in competition with other tasks has been shown to increase food intake, particularly when tasks are cognitively demanding. To test the hypothesis that social facilitation of eating occurs, in part, as a function of distraction which impairs the ability to self-monitor, eating with others was compared with eating alone or in front of the television. Using a repeated measure within-subjects design, thirty-seven participants (21 males) visited the laboratory 4 times to eat a buffet-style lunch ad libitum. All eating episodes were filmed. Energy intake (EI) was measured when participants ate alone (A), ate alone while watching TV (B), ate with two same sex strangers (C), and ate with two same sex friends (D) in a counterbalanced order. EI was significantly enhanced by presence of familiar others (D: 4565 ± 272 kJ, p b 0.001) and watching TV (B: 4350 ± 252 kJ, p b 0.05) compared to baseline (A: 3861 ± 200 kJ). Length of eating episode correlated significantly (p b 0.05) with EI, however, amount of time spent eating and looking at food differed by condition with a greater percentage of time focussed on food during baseline (p b 0.001). Eating with friends increased EI by 18% and eating in front of the TV increased EI by 14% relative to baseline. Engaging in conversation or watching TV draws attention away from the eaten food and can stimulate food intake. However, since eating with strangers also drew attention away from food but did not result in increased intake, social facilitation effects are not simply due to distraction. Thus food intake can be enhanced when attention to food and self-monitoring are impaired during distraction, however, this effect is moderated when eating with strangers.
Lifestyle determinants of the drive to eat: a meta-analysis
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2012
Background: Obesity is emerging as the most significant health concern of the 21st century. Although this is attributable in part to changes in our environment-including the increased prevalence of energy-dense food-it also appears that several lifestyle factors may increase our vulnerability to this calorie-rich landscape. Epidemiologic studies have begun to show links between adiposity and behaviors such as television watching, alcohol intake, and sleep deprivation. However, these studies leave unclear the direction of this association. In addition, studies that investigated the acute impact of these factors on food intake have reported a wide variety of effect sizes, from highly positive to slightly negative. Objective: The purpose of this article was to provide a meta-analysis of the relation between lifestyle choices and increases in acute food intake. Design: An initial search was performed on PubMed to collect articles relating television watching, sleep deprivation, and alcohol consumption to food intake. Only articles published before February 2012 were considered. Studies that took place in a controlled, laboratory setting with healthy individuals were included. Studies were analyzed by using 3 meta-analyses with random-effects models. In addition, a 1-factor ANOVA was run to discover any main effect of lifestyle. Results: The 3 most prominent lifestyle factors-television watching, alcohol intake, and sleep deprivation-had significant shortterm effects on food intake, with alcohol being more significant (Cohen's d = 1.03) than sleep deprivation (Cohen's d = 0.49) and television watching (Cohen's d = 0.2). Conclusions: Our results suggest that television watching, alcohol intake, and sleep deprivation are not merely correlated with obesity but likely contribute to it by encouraging excessive eating. Because these behaviors are all known to affect cognitive functions involved in reward saliency and inhibitory control, it may be that they represent common mechanisms through which this eating is facilitated.
Eating habits and appetite control: a psychobiological perspective
Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, 1999
An individual's eating behaviour is shaped by factors ranging from economic conditions and cultural practices to biological influences. The physiological system controlling appetite appears to be adapted to solving the problem of an unevenness of food supply across time, and is fairly permissive in its response to undereating and overeating. Consequently, when food is abundant, the diet is energy dense and energy expenditure is low, there is a strong tendency to become obese (i.e. obesity is better viewed as due to a ‘toxic’ environment than to faulty physiological control of appetite). Under such conditions the most common method of avoiding obesity is through the cognitive control of eating. However, dietary restraint and dieting are demanding tasks, and are associated with psychological costs, including significant impairment of cognitive performance. Restraint is also prone to disinhibition, with the result that it can sometimes undermine eating control, even leading to the ...
Research indicates that being bored affectively marks an appraised lack of meaning in the present situation and in life. We propose that state boredom increases eating in an attempt to distract from this experience, especially among people high in objective self-awareness. Three studies were conducted to investigate boredom’s effects on eating, both naturally occurring in a diary study and manipulated in two experiments. In Study 1, a week-long diary study showed that state boredom positively predicted calorie, fat, carbohydrate, and protein consumption. In Study 2, a high (vs. low) boredom task increased the desire to snack as opposed to eating something healthy, especially amongst those participants high in objective self-awareness. In addition, Study 3 demonstrated that among people high in objective self-awareness, high (vs. low) boredom increased the consumption of less healthy foods and the consumption of more exciting, healthy foods. However, this did not extend to unexciting, healthy food. Collectively, these novel findings signify the role of boredom in predicting maladaptive and adaptive eating behaviors as a function of the need to distant from the experience of boredom. Further, our results suggest that more exciting, healthy food serves as alternative to maladaptive consumption following boredom.