Researchers recommend that people who wish to maintain or lose weight avoid eating while watching TV, talking on the phone or listening to music. All these activities are capable of derailing even the best weight-loss efforts.
A recent study of healthy-weight women revealed that even restrained eaters consumed significantly more calories when they were distracted than when they were alone without outside stimuli.
Researchers from Hospital Hotel-Dieu in Paris, France recruited 41 women, ages 26 to 55, to eat lunch once a week under four different conditions in a controlled laboratory setting.
The conditions were eating alone without distraction, alone while listening to recorded instruction on how to focus on the taste of their food, and alone while listening to a tape of a detective story.
The participants ate lunch with three other women who were also participating in the study.
Despite reporting equal levels of hunger under all four conditions, the women ate considerably more calories while listening to the detective story.
In conclusion, researchers recommend that people who wish to maintain or lose weight avoid eating while watching TV, talking on the phone or listening to music. All these activities are capable of derailing even the best weight-loss efforts.