Eating Until Full and Eating Quickly Triples the Risk for Overweight

A combination of eating until full and eating quickly may increase the risk for overweight by 3-fold, according to the results of a cross-sectional survey. How an individual eats may be just as important as what he or she is eating.

“Eating quickly, gorging, and binge eating have been associated with total energy intake, and eating quickly and binge eating have been associated with satiety and insulin resistance,” write Koutatsu Maruyama, from Osaka University in Osaka, Japan, and colleagues. “All these eating behaviors may lead to being overweight or obese. In addition, the positive association of eating quickly with body mass index was observed independent of total energy intake.”

The goal of this study was to evaluate whether eating until full or eating quickly or combinations of these eating behaviors were linked to overweight.

From 2003 to 2006 in 2 communities in Japan, 3287 adults (1122 men, 2165 women) aged 30 to 69 years participated in surveys on cardiovascular risk. Factors surveyed included overweight status, defined as a body mass index of 25.0 kg/m2 or more, and dietary habits of eating until full as measured with a lifestyle questionnaire and speed of eating as measured with a validated brief self-administered questionnaire.

More than half of the men (50.9%) and women (58.4%) surveyed self-reported eating until full. Eating quickly was self-reported by 45.6% of the men and 36.3% of the women. Compared with the group of participants of both sexes who reported not eating until full and not eating quickly, the group who reported eating until full and eating quickly had the highest age-adjusted mean values for height, weight, body mass index, and total energy intake.

For eating until full, the odds ratio (OR) of being overweight was 2.00 for men and 1.92  for women  For both eating until full and eating quickly vs neither eating behavior, the multivariable OR of being overweight was 3.13 (95% CI, 2.20 – 4.45) for men and 3.21 (95% CI, 2.41 – 4.29) for women.

“Eating until full and eating quickly are associated with being overweight in Japanese men and women, and these eating behaviours combined may have a substantial impact on being overweight,” the study authors write.

“As it is difficult to estimate these causal effects in a cross sectional study, prospective cohort and intervention studies will be needed to validate these associations between eating behaviour patterns and being overweight,” the study authors conclude.
In a study by Sasaki and colleagues, which was published in the November 2003 issue of the International Journal of Obesity and Related Metabolic Disorders, 1695 female Japanese dietetic students completed a 1-month food diary. Study investigators included inquiries regarding the rate of eating. They found that the mean body mass index of participants was higher by 2.2, 1.5, 1.0, and 0.5 kg/m2 among subjects in the eating speed groups of “very fast,” “relatively fast,” “medium,” and “relatively slow” groups, respectively, vs the group with a “very slow” rate of eating. Conversely, macronutrient intake was less significant in its effects on body mass index.

The current study examines the effects of the rate of eating on weight in a more mixed and older population, and it also inquires as to whether eating until full affects the risk for overweight.

Practice Pearls:

• A previous study of young Japanese women found a positive linear association between the rate of eating and body mass index. This relationship was stronger than that between macronutrient intake and body mass index.
• In the current study, both eating until full and eating quickly increased the risk for overweight in men and women. The combination of both of these eating behaviors increased this risk to a greater extent than either factor alone.

BMJ. Published online October 22, 2008.

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