Does eating fast promote obesity?

Currently, childhood obesity is a major public health problem mainly due to its high prevalence and predisposition to a large number of health problems both in childhood and in adult life. In Spain, about 41% of infants between 6 and 9 years old are overweight or obese according to the latest available data. The vast majority of strategies to prevent or treat childhood obesity and the metabolic alterations it causes are based on increasing physical activity, reducing sedentary lifestyle and promoting adherence to a healthy diet.

Recent studies have suggested that excess adiposity and other associated cardiometabolic risk factors may be affected by behavioral traits such as speed of food intake. In fact, in those studies and some others, eating fast has been linked to higher calorie intake, and higher body mass index, prevalence of obesity, and certain metabolic disorders in adults.

A team of specialists from the Rovira i Virgili University (URV) of Tarragona, the Center for Biomedical Research in the Physiopathology of Obesity and Nutrition Network (CIBEROBN), in Spain, and other institutions, has evaluated 956 infants from three to six years of age the association between the speed of eating and the type of diet, the risk of being overweight, blood pressure, body mass index and other risk factors such as cholesterol.

These infants are part of the CORALS multicenter project, which is carried out in seven research centers in Spain.

Researchers of the CORALS project. (Photo: CORALS)

The main objective of the new study was to evaluate the association between the speed of eating in the three main meals (breakfast, lunch and dinner) and adherence to the Mediterranean diet, the risk of being overweight/obese, greater adiposity, higher blood pressure levels blood pressure and other cardiometabolic risk factors such as cholesterol, triglycerides and fasting glucose.

The new study, carried out by a team led by Tany E Garcidueñas-Fimbres from the URV, has shown that those children with a higher rate of intake had less adherence to the Mediterranean diet, a greater risk of being overweight or obese, and increased levels body fat, blood pressure and blood glucose. This indicates that eating faster could be associated with the intake of less healthy foods such as those with higher energy content, ultra-processed foods associated with a higher risk of obesity and alterations in the cardiometabolic system. Such foods may be more attractive due to their high palatability.

Other studies have also shown that chewing slowly and increasing the number of chewing cycles during a meal is inversely associated with adiposity. These results suggest that a slower rate of eating might enhance the development of the satiety signal, which could limit total food intake.

The study is titled “Associations between eating speed, diet quality, adiposity and cardiometabolic risk factors.” And it has been published in the academic journal The Journal of Pediatrics. (Source: URV)