Does eating food fast make you fat?
A team of researchers in the U.K. thinks it might – and that the tendency to scarf down a meal can be passed down from parents to kids. In a recent study, doctors from the Health Behavior Research Centre at the University College London measured the eating speed of several pairs of twin children, who were divided into three body-type groups: overweight, high-normal and low-normal.
The twins were videotaped eating standardized portions of food, and researchers then counted the number of bites per minute the children took while chowing down.
To analyze the data, researches noted the changes in eating speed during the meal, and cross-indexed the information with the inherited body type of each pair of twins.
What they found was that the overweight twins not only consumed MORE food on average than normal-weight twins, but they also ate FASTER, as well. From this, the study team concluded that faster eating can lead to weight gain, and that it’s likely that the TENDENCY to eat quickly is passed from parent to child genetically.
Even so, DNA is not destiny: The study’s lead author noted that children most likely learn the actual BEHAVIOR of eating quickly from their parents and said that – quote – the “early promotion of slower eating for all children could…help to control current obesity trends.”
So all you parents out there, teach your youngster’s to take it slow at the dinner table, and you’ll help them keep off the pounds in the long run.
Now, what about grown-ups who struggle with obesity? A new study from the National Cancer Institute that will be released next month notes that obese post-menopausal women may have a higher risk of ovarian cancer.
It seems that it’s time to slow down the fat- by not eating food too quickly.
