There’s increasing evidence to suggest that the art of chewing has a role to play in reducing overeating.
For a number of years we have known of a link between speed of eating and body mass index – faster eating is associated with a higher body mass. If you know you are a fast eater there’s no harm in aiming to put your cutlery down between mouthfuls. Plus we’d also suggest taking the time to sit down to eat rather than grabbing food on the run.
Further studies are now identifying that the actual process of chewing your food is linked with preventing overeating. That’s interesting as we certainly have easy access these days to plenty of juices and smoothies typically marketed as an easy, healthy meal or snack option. The message is rather than letting the machine do the chewing for you – the chewing activity is a valuable tool for controlling the drive to eat.
So those old words of wisdom of chew your foods thoroughly are certainly relevant for a number of reasons. Possibly more reasons than we anticipated!
It was a pleasure to be a speaker at the GP CME conference again this year. Over 800 GP’s plus practice nurses and managers attended the conference with many choosing my talks about nutrition and weight loss as their electives. These professionals are keen to help mend the trend of obesity in NZ. I hope I sent them away with some hot tips on weight loss…
