Slowing down the speed at which you eat, along with cutting out after dinner snacks and not eating within two hours of going to sleep may all help prevent obesity and lower the associated health risks, according to a study conducted by researchers from Kyushu University in Fukuoka, Japan.
Interventions aimed at reducing eating speed may be effective in preventing obesity and lowering the associated health risks. Image credit: StockSnap.
Kyushu University scientists Yumi Hurst and Haruhisa Fukuda base their findings on health insurance data for 59,717 people with diabetes in Japan who submitted claims and had regular health check-ups.
“Patient-level panel data from 2008 to 2013 were generated using commercially available insurance claims data and health check-up data,” the researchers said.
“The study subjects comprised Japanese men and women enrolled in health insurance societies who had been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes during the study period.”
“Body mass index (BMI) was measured, and obesity was defined as a BMI of 25 kg/m2 or more.”
“Information on lifestyle habits were obtained from the subjects’ responses to questions asked during health check-ups.”
“The main exposure of interest was eating speed (‘fast’, ‘normal’ and ‘slow’). Other lifestyle habits included eating dinner within 2 hours of sleeping, after-dinner snacking, skipping breakfast, alcohol consumption frequency, sleep adequacy and tobacco consumption.”
More than a third (36.5%) of participants had one check-up over the six years, while just under a third (29.5%) had two. One in five (20%) had three.
At the start of the study, some 22,070 people routinely wolfed down their food; 33,455 ate at a normal speed; and 4,192 lingered over every mouthful. The slow eaters tended to be healthier and to have a healthier lifestyle than either the fast or normal speed eaters.
Around half of the total sample (just under 52%) changed their eating speed over the course of the six years.
All the aspects of eating and sleeping habits studied, as well as alcohol consumption and previous obesity were significantly associated with obesity.
After taking account of potentially influential factors, the results showed that compared with those who tended to gobble up their food, those who ate at a normal speed were 29% less likely to be obese, rising to 42% for those who ate slowly.
And although absolute reductions in waist circumference — an indicator of a potentially harmful midriff bulge — were small, they were greater among the slow and normal speed eaters.
Snacking after dinner and eating within 2 hours of going to sleep 3 or more times a week were also strongly linked to changes in BMI. But skipping breakfast wasn’t.
The study was published online February 12, 2018 in the journal BMJ Open.
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Y. Hurst & H. Fukuda. 2018. Effects of changes in eating speed on obesity in patients with diabetes: a secondary analysis of longitudinal health check-up data. BMJ Open 8: e019589; doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2017-019589
