New study shows they feel sated ahead of people of normal weight

Apr 8, 2014 13:45 GMT  ·  By
Obese people eat faster, consume more calories than individuals of average weight
   Obese people eat faster, consume more calories than individuals of average weight

A study supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation indicates that the speed at which people eat may play an important role in the development of obesity. The investigation revealed that obese individuals need much less time to feel full when eating than people of normal weight. However, the first group tends to consume more calories during their brief eating sessions, the team found.

Findings such as these are very important for addressing the current obesity epidemic, especially in countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom. Since 1980, global obesity rates have doubled and public health experts have been trying to come up with a solution to fix this problem ever since. Thus far, their efforts have largely been in vain.

Experts at the University Hospital in Basel, led by researcher Christoph Beglinger, compared feelings of satiation in obese and normal-weight people, and found that obese individuals on average eat a lot faster than their peers. However, in these intervals, they consume more calories than usual, by up to 140 kilo calories, AlphaGalileo reports.

Statistically, obese people consume 85 kcal per minute, as opposed to 50 kcal per minute for people of regular weight. “Eating even just 100 kcal a day more than the recommended amount can cause weight gain. For this reason, the speed of eating is a potential contributing factor in obesity,” the team explains. Details of the study appear in the latest issue of the journal Physiology & Behavior.