Obesity and Physical Inactivity: The Relevance of Reconsidering the Notion of Sedenta

[lylemcd]

Research review on the main site

[MrJiveBoJingles]

Interesting review.

I have definitely noticed that I tend to eat more junk when reading stuff on the web or watching TV. It seems like when my attention is absorbed in mental activity, I just tend to notice less the physical act of stuffing chips or popcorn in my mouth, or at least pay less attention to the amount of food I'm consuming.

People tend to eat a whole bunch while watching TV or doing similar things, while the idea of simply sitting down and inhaling that much snack food (e.g. a whole bag of chips) while doing nothing else would seem obviously weird and unhealthy to them. I wonder if many people might lose weight simply by cutting out all "distracted eating" and sticking to two or three "pure eating" meals each day.

[Edit: and I remember one woman telling me she lost weight as a result of deciding to write down every single thing she ate each day. Not even deliberately trying to control portions or anything, simply paying more attention to what she was consuming. Which ultimately led to her consuming less.]

It seems like poor sleep could also have an effect on levels of motivation, so that people would be less likely to exercise regularly or adhere to a diet, and more likely to sit "zombified" and immobile at the desk or TV. Don't know if that has been studied, though.

[lylemcd]

Realizes that eating during TV or whatwever may be totally unrelated to the topic of that resaerch review, that is, KBW blood sugar issues driving hunger. Some of it is reaction to food cues on tv (advertisements) and a lot of people engage in mindless eating without recognizing it. So they associate tv watching (or video games) with chips and suddenly have eaten a bag without recognizing it.

[MrJiveBoJingles]

Yeah, I kind of went off on a tangent there, it was just that "knowledge based work + food consumption" made me think of the mindless eating issue.

[easyrhino]

looks like the idea of "sleep is good" hit the somewhat more mainstream news:

http://www.livestrong.com/article/71...ampaign=100330