Role of dietary carbohydrate and frequent eating in body-weight control

Abstract

Despite widespread interest in body-weight control, the prevalence of obesity continues to rise worldwide. Current public health advice for obesity prevention is clearly failing. The present paper examines the appropriateness of current public health advice for body-weight control, i.e. to reduce consumption of fatty foods, to reduce consumption of sugar and to avoid snacking between meals. An increase in carbohydrate : fat ratio should improve body-weight control, as high-carbohydrate low-fat diets are less likely to lead to overeating, and if overeating does occur, less of the excess energy is likely to be stored as fat. However, it is suggested that for the long-term prevention of weight gain, advice to increase consumption of carbohydrate-rich foods may be more effective than advice which focuses on reducing consumption of fatty food. Moreover, in view of the inverse relationship between fat and sugar intakes, sugar may have a positive role to play in body-weight control in facilitating an increase in carbohydrate : fat ratio. Snacking for most individuals appears not to adversely affect body-weight control, and for some it may improve control. This situation may exist because frequent eating helps appetite control, thus preventing overeating at meals, and as snacks overall tend to be higher in carbohydrate and lower in fat than meals, frequent eating may be a strategy for increasing carbohydrate : fat ratio. It is also suggested that eating ‘little and often’ may be a more compatible pattern of eating for a physically-active lifestyle than eating large meals. Perhaps the most appropriate advice on food intake that would work synergistically with concurrent advice to increase physical activity is to eat more carbohydrate, and to eat frequently.

Eating patterns and dietary composition in relation to BMI in younger and older adults

“…15,20,21 One potential explanation for the equivocal findings among studies is dietary reporting bias. As suggested previously, 9,10,22 many of these studies were likely confounded by under-reporting of energy intake. 23,24 This under-reporting, primarily by overweight and obese persons, may be specific to energy-dense snack and dessert-type foods.…”

“…5,6 More recently, other dietary composition factors such as fiber and energy density, 7,8 and eating patterns such as eating frequency, snacking or skipping meals have been suggested to have a potentially important influence on energy regulation. 9 However, the relative importance of these dietary factors is not known as few studies have examined eating patterns and dietary composition simultaneously in relation to body fatness.…”

“…[25][26][27][28] We recently reported that implausible energy intakes affect apparent eating patterns as well, being associated with lower reported meal and snack frequencies, energy densities and portions consumed. 9,10,22 With aging comes a decline in the ability to regulate food intake. For example, older subjects failed to compensate at meals for energy preloads, 29 and did not return to starting body weight after long-term overfeeding or underfeeding as did younger subjects.…”

Influence of dietary pattern on the development of overweight in a Chinese population

“…There are few studies among Chinese populations examining the role of dietary intake, taking into account other confounding factors such as age, physical activity, gender and educational attainment. Other than the effect of total energy and macronutrient intake (Halkjaer et al, 2006) on development of overweight and obesity, recent studies have highlighted the role of dietary patterns in terms of meal frequency and timing, and types of food consumed (Kirk, 2000;Sichieri, 2002;Francis et al, 2003;Ghosh et al, 2003;Kelishadi et al, 2003;Nicklas et al, 2003;Waller et al, 2003;Bazzano et al, 2005;Hubert et al, 2005;Howard et al, 2006). For example, patterns predisposing to overweight and obesity include a 'Westernized' pattern compared with a 'traditional' pattern for the population studied (Sichieri, 2002;Ghosh et al, 2003;Hubert et al, 2005) and snacks consumption (Fu and Hao, 2002;Francis et al, 2003;Sothern, 2004;Hubert et al, 2005).…”

Netherlands Research programme weight Gain prevention (NHF-NRG): rationale, objectives and strategies

“…Both a decrease in the consumption of energy-dense food (Astrup, 2001) and an increase in the consumption of fibre-rich foods (Kirk, 2000) may be effective in the prevention of weight gain in young adults. With regard to physical activity, a sustained pattern of regular moderate activities like walking and cycling is viewed as an effective strategy to prevent weight gain (Westerterp, 2001).…”