Speed of eating and 3-year BMI change: a nationwide prospective study of mid-age women

Abstract

Objective: To conduct the first nationwide population survey to examine the associations between changes in speed of eating and weight gain over 3 years. The study also explored whether faster eating at baseline was related to healthyweight women becoming overweight after 3 years. Design: Longitudinal. At baseline, participants were randomly selected from a nationally representative sampling frame to participate in a prospective study. Women completed self-administered baseline questionnaires on demographic and health measures. Self-reported speed of eating, smoking status, physical activity, menopause status, and height and weight were collected at baseline and again 3 years later. Setting: Nationwide study, New Zealand. Subjects: Women (n 1601) aged 40-50 years were recruited at baseline from New Zealand electoral rolls. Results: There was no evidence of associations between 3-year BMI adjusting for baseline BMI and either baseline speed of eating (slower and faster; P = 0·524) or change in speed of eating (consistently faster eating, consistently slower eating, slower eating at baseline but not at 3 years, faster eating at baseline but not at 3 years; P = 0·845). Of the 488 women with healthy BMI (18·5 to <25·0 kg/m 2 ) at baseline, seventy-seven (15·8 %) became overweight (BMI ≥ 25·0 kg/m 2 ) after 3 years. Compared with those who were slower eaters at baseline, faster eating at baseline did not increase the risk of becoming overweight 3 years later (P = 0·958) nor did change in speed of eating (P = 0·236). Conclusions: Results suggest that once women have reached mid-life, faster eating does not predict further weight gain. Keywords Speed of eating Mid-age women Longitudinal studyLongitudinal studies have revealed that US and Australian mid-age women (42-55 years) gain on average between 0·2 and 1 kg per year (1)(2)(3) . The prevention of weight gain in premenopausal women has been identified as an important health goal (4) , since abdominal adiposity and cardiovascular risk increase markedly following menopause (5,6) . Faster self-reported rates of eating have been shown in cross-sectional studies to be associated with excess body weight (7)(8)(9)(10) , independent of self-reported energy intake (9,10) . Results from our baseline survey of mid-age women (7) showed that after adjusting for demographic, health and behavioural variables, every one-category increase in self-reported speed of eating ('very slow', relatively slow', 'medium', 'relatively fast', 'very fast') was associated with a 2·8 % increase in BMI. Cross-sectional studies have also demonstrated positive associations between faster eating rate and CVD risk factors (11) and insulin resistance (12) . Few longitudinal studies have examined the relationship between weight gain and speed of eating (13)(14)(15)(16) . A retrospective longitudinal study of 529 male workers in Japan demonstrated that only among the 20-29 year age group, compared with the combined group of slow and medium-speed eaters, the fast-eating group had a higher average 8...

Comparison of Mindful and Slow Eating Strategies on Acute Energy Intake

“…with responses including: "very slow", "relatively slow", "medium", "relatively fast", or "very fast". Results from this study demonstrated that, unlike the results from other cross-sectional studies, there were no associations with eating speed and BMI: neither faster eating at baseline nor change in speed of eating over the 3 year period increased the risk of becoming overweight (24). Because the relationship between eating rate and body weight remains undefined, additional studies are warranted.…”

“…It has been postulated that increased ingestion rate is positively associated with body weight (22,23); however, one prospective trial showed that faster eating or a change in eating speed was not associated with increased risk for obesity at 3 years (24). Therefore, this association is still undefined.…”

“…Eating rate is one of many factors that has been suggested to impact body weight (22,24,96). published studies (20 cross-sectional, 2 longitudinal, and one including both study designs)…”

Association between Eating Speed and Classical Cardiovascular Risk Factors: A Cross-Sectional Study

“…However, after adjusting for possible confounders, this association only remained in women [10]. Only two longitudinal studies in healthy populations—one from New Zealand [11] conducted in women, and the other from Japan [12] conducted in men—have analyzed the association between eating speed and weight change, and positive associations were reported in both. A recent longitudinal study conducted in a Japanese population with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) showed that those individuals eating slower at baseline had a lower prevalence of obesity [13] and had lower BMIs and waist circumferences than those eating fast after 6 years of follow-up.…”

“…In fact, a systematic review and meta-analysis of several cross-sectional [7,8,9,10] and longitudinal [11,12,13] studies, most of which were conducted in Asian populations, showed that eating quickly is associated with increased body mass index (BMI) and a greater risk of obesity [14]. However, the magnitudes of association across studies were significantly heterogeneous, something that was attributed to differences between the populations studied and to the methods used to measure eating speed (self-reported eating speed or self-reported eating rate) [14].…”