Feeling Full Does Not Stop You Eating More

 

GUEST FEATURE: Just because a low-calorie diet food fills you, it does not mean that it will make you eat less. Research has found there is little evidence …

that suppressing the appetite stops people eating. The study implies that there may be no point in spending money on diet foods that promise to stop your hunger because you will have that afternoon snack regardless.

 

Bernard Corfe, from Sheffield University, reviewed dozens of papers in which scientists had tried to find a link between subjective ratings of appetite and subsequent calorie consumption and found no clear relationship. This is despite scientists having used one as a proxy for the other for decades.

 

“It is a big concern that these approaches are being used to develop strategies to offset obesity,” he said. “We hear these claims, ‘Fuller for longer’. Those assertions may well be true – the foods may make you feel that way. But it in not beneficial in terms of supporting dieting.”

 

He and his colleagues began the research, which is published in the journal Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition, because of their experiences in failing to find a link. “A couple of years ago we had a talented researcher in our laboratory, testing whether omega 3 might impact on appetite,” Dr Corfe said. “She did the study, controlled intake, gave people oega 3, asked about appetite and measured what they ate afterwards.

 

“She found there was an impact on appetite but no change in the energy intake. We initially went into a tailspin – we thought it was a poorly designed experiment.”

 

So he looked at every paper on the subject published between 1999 and 2015. In more than half there was no relationship between appetite scores and calorie intake, and in many of the others it was marginal.

 

The study could not assess why this was but Dr Corfe suggested that it may simply be that there is too much temptation and that “lack of hunger in an of itself is not enough to override that”.

 

He added: “Think of your behaviour on Christmas Day. You can be gorged but always fit more in. I have teenage sons; this fits.”

 

Aisling Piggot, a dietician and spokeswoman for the British Dietetic Association, said: “What we need to be aware of is that people trying to control their appetites are generally trying to lose weight. Sometimes restriction and perceived restriction can have the opposite efffect on energy intake.”

 

Feature courtesy of Tom Whipple, Science Editor, THE TIMES