Brain and Food Consumption

Are you looking for tips to help you maintain a healthy, normal weight? Try this! Tturn off the TV, stop playing games, and avoid reading while you are eating. Pay clear intentional awareness of what you are eating, how fast you are eating, and how much you are eating (as opposed to eating while being distracted). Eric Robinson and colleagues from the University of Liverpool, UK, researched and analyzed 24 scientific studies that were done between 1997 and 2011. Each involved a researcher who actively manipulated the attention, memory and awareness of eating food of normal-weight study participants. The researchers found statistically significant differences between how much distracted participants ate versus those who were undistracted. On average:


1. Eating while distracted increased the amount of food a participant ate by about 10%, as compared to eating while not distracted

2. Eating while distracted increased the amount of food a participant ate at a later meal by more than 25 %

3. Intentional recall of food consumed at an earlier meal (while currently eating a meal) reduced the amount consumed at a subsequent meal by about 10% (but not during the current meal)