Is Watching TV While Eating Harmful ? Do not eat while watching TV!.. especially if you are trying to lose weight !
Yes i know. You probably find this advice stupid, impractical and even illogical. In fact, this is not the case, and if you want to understand how with a small change you can significantly improve your diet, keep reading.
Table of Contents
What will you learn from this article
- What is the connection between nutrition, television and appetite;
- How distractions affect not only during the current meal, but also hours after;
- How can we increase our caloric intake with something seemingly innocent;
- Practical tips for small but time-paying habits.
We recommended not watching TV while eating, and this was in connection with slow eating and giving enough time for satiety signals to reach the brain. Today, however, we will take a closer look at the relationship between eating and watching TV and why the two should not be combined together, especially if we are aiming to lose weight.
The environment and appetite
If you dig into the topic of the relationship between the environment and the choices we make regarding our diet, you will come across not one but two factors. Among them are: the abundance of food, the speed of eating, the people with whom we sit at the same table, as well as whether we know them or not (more on the topic here and here.
Although some of these factors make us eat less, such as a romantic date with the opposite sex, in most cases the opposite happens – we eat more, often unconsciously and unnecessarily. The TV is no exception.
Watching TV and eating
After mentioning slow eating, it’s not hard to see why we can unconsciously eat more food while watching TV – our minds are busy watching the screen, we’re not focused on the food, we swallow it quickly, we don’t chew well, and until we feel it, that we are full, we have already overeaten. But does the influence of the TV stop there? What happens 2-3 hours later?
Method Participants and nature of the study
The study , which we will look at today, involved 16 young women (average age about 19 years). The study consisted of two stages, each of which was under certain conditions. Participants had to make 2 controlled lunches, with a distance of 2 days between them. At the first controlled lunch, they were to watch a 10-minute video, and at the second lunch, the television was removed. Half of the women started first with lunch and with TV, and the other half – with lunch without TV.
The projected video was of a comedic nature – popular and liked by the people, so that the participants were more likely to be distracted by their lunch. At the end of each lunch, participants were asked questions about how clearly they remembered lunch, how they felt, and had to rate their mood and appetite with a number between 1 (low) and 100 (high). The questions concerned hunger, satiety, sadness, joy, irritation, calm. Participants had to return 2 and a half hours after answering the inquiries, during which time they were not allowed to eat or drink anything.
Food selection
The controlled lunch was made of sandwiches with ham and 15 g of chips, it also contained margarine, and the caloric value of everything was 400 calories. The biscuits were of 3 types, mainly including chocolate and with a total weight of 40 g.
Purpose
The main idea of the experiment was to find out how many biscuits the participants will eat after (not) watching TV during their lunch. It is known that we usually eat more while watching TV, but the specific study wanted to determine whether this effect of television continues even hours later.
Results
After the controlled lunch with watching TV, the participants ate more biscuits than after this lunch, during which they did not watch video. The result was an average of 15 g more biscuits (about 55 calories). Interestingly, the participants did not feel hungrier or overeating after lunch and watching TV at the time. He also did not notice a difference in joy, sadness, irritation or relaxation. The difference was in the degree to which they remembered each of the two controlled lunches. The evaluation of the controlled lunch + TV was much lower than that of the individual lunch – they did not remember the first one well, because their attention was focused on the comedy film and not on the lunch.
Discussion
A disadvantage of the study is that the number of participants is too low to draw general conclusions, but it gives us an interesting direction for reflection and personal experiments. The good thing is that each of the participants went through two stages, the only difference being the 10-minute video during lunch – in. the advantage is that each person compares himself. At first glance, the result (55 more calories in the afternoon + TV) seems insignificant, but it can make a big difference if it happens on a daily basis and if really watching TV during a meal makes us forget what and how much exactly we ate.
Another disadvantage that I notice is that the study affected only women, and the selection of lunch is not quite optimal. Would the results be the same if lunch consisted of a serving of pure protein, a large salad and carbohydrates with a lower glycemic index? Or were tempting chocolate treats offered afterwards? Most likely yes, albeit to varying degrees, because distractions during meals can “erase” the memory of exactly what we ate and even if we ate enough calories, soon after we have an increased appetite.
Subsequently, another study emerged that sought the same relationship, but had 44 participants (22 men and 22 women) and the distracting factor was computer games. Participants were divided into 2 groups – the first ate without distraction and consisted of 22 people (men and women alike), while the people in the second group had lunch while playing computer games. As in the first study, questions were asked and there was a biscuit test, but it was 30 minutes after lunch.
As a result, expectations have been confirmed that the reason for a stronger appetite in the afternoon with distracting factors is the inability of a person to remember exactly what he ate because the brain was engaged in other activities. The computer game group ate 100% more biscuits than those who ate lunch on their own, and also had a lower feeling of satiety immediately after lunch. It would be good to see more research to look at the relationship between the memory of the last meal and the various distractions that accompany this meal, as well as the extent to which this affects subsequent meals during the day.
It turns out that television not only increases the amount of food consumed during viewing, but even hours after.
Advices
When you eating , focus entirely on your food, or at least do so in most cases. The more meals you have in a relaxed environment, the better – for the enjoyment of the meal, for better satiety, to help digestion as a means to reduce the risk of overeating. Do not watch TV, do not talk on the phone, do not play games, do not surf the web. Focus on this on your plate and enjoy it by eating slowly and chewing well.
You will be fuller for a longer time after that and you will reduce the possibility of overeating with unnecessary snacks. If you want to lose weight, do not bother to follow this advice – it certainly will not hurt, and any person who knows better, will be able to feel the differences and draw their own conclusions, as well as to assess whether he feels better. And now! Let’s ask, but I want to clarify that there will be no cookies in exchange for your answers!
Do you remember your last 5 meals? How many of them ate in a relaxed atmosphere, enjoying the food? How many of them did you eat while watching TV, reading a newspaper / magazine, writing to a friend on social media, talking on the phone, etc.? What do you think about the topic and do you think you need a change of habits?
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