Fat people always eating? New study says no
(CBS) Think fat people got that way because they're constantly eating? Actually, new research suggests overweight folks eat less often than their normal-weight counterparts.
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For the study -published in the Nov. issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association - researchers compared eating and exercise habits of 257 fat and normal-weight adults between ages 25 to 47. The researchers found overweight adults averaged three meals and one snack per day, but ate more than 2,000 calories per day and were less active.
Conversely, normal-weight people ate and exercised more often. Even participants who managed to lose weight throughout the study and keep it off ate more often than their overweight counterparts. Participants who lost weight ate multiple snacks and consumed about 1,800 calories a day, and those that maintained a normal weight consumed about 1,900 calories.
"This preliminary investigation suggests that eating more frequently, characterized by an eating pattern of approximately three meals and two snacks, was related to lower BMI and maintenance of weight loss," the authors wrote in the paper.
What could explain this effect? The researchers are unsure.
"Most of the research has shown that people who eat more frequently have a lower weight," lead researcher Dr. Jessica Bachman, assistant professor in the department of nutrition and dietetics at Marywood University in Scranton, Pennsylvania, told Reuters. But no one knows why."
The researchers found that study participants who lost weight exercised more, burning 3,000 calories per week compared with the overweight folks who burned a paltry 800 calories. But Bachman noted that snacking could also play a role.
"If you eat more often, it stops you from getting too hungry," she told Reuters. "If you wait 10 hours after you've last eaten, you end up eating a lot more food."
