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Children who eat quickly can gain weight

A study carried out on 956 boys and girls from three to six years old has concluded that eating too fast increases the risk of becoming overweight, blood pressure and high cholesterol, among other cardiometabolic risk factors.

The objective of the research was to evaluate the association between the speed of ingestion in the three main meals (breakfast, lunch and dinner) and adherence to the Mediterranean diet, the risk of presenting overweight/obesity, greater adiposity, higher levels of blood pressure and others cardiometabolic risk factors such as cholesterol, triglycerides and fasting glucose.

Ultra-processed products are eaten quickly

The results showed that those children with higher ingestion speed had lower adherence to the Mediterranean diet, a higher risk of presenting overweight or obesity and increased levels of body fat, blood pressure and blood glucose.

Eating faster than recommended may be associated with the intake of unhealthy, high-energy foods as is the case of ultra-processed foods, associated with a greater risk of obesity and alterations in the cardiometabolic system.

These foods are attractive to children and young people due to their high palatability, which is achieved with a mixture of fats, sugars and additives.

The research has been published in The Journal of Pediatrics and is part of the multicenter CORALS project, which has been carried out by the researcher Tany E. Garcidueñas-Fimbres, supervised by Nancy Babio and Jordi Salas-Salvadó, researchers from CIBEROBN and the Rovira University i Virgili and the Pere Virgili Research Institute (URV-IISPV).

In addition, several CIBEROBN teams have collaborated at the Maimonides Institute for Biomedical Research of Córdoba (IMIBIC), the University of Córdoba, the Health Research Institute of Santiago (IDIS), the University of Zaragoza and Valencia, the IdisNA Institute for Health Research and the Hospital del Mar Institute for Medical Research (IMIM) in Barcelona.

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Chewing a lot and slowly reduces body fat

Other studies have also shown that chewing slowly and increase the number of chewing cycles during a meal is inversely associated with adiposity. The results suggest that a slower eating rate could improve the development of the satiety signal, which could limit the total food intake.

41% of children between 6 and 9 years old are overweight in Spain. Currently, childhood obesity is a major public health problem, because it predisposes to suffer a large number of health problems, both in childhood and in adult life.

The vast majority of strategies to prevent or treat childhood obesity and the metabolic disorders it causes are based on increasing physical activity, reducing a sedentary lifestyle, and promoting adherence to a healthy diet.

Why is it important to chew food?

The digestion of food begins in our mouth, where we secrete ptyalin, an enzyme from the amylase family that is found in our saliva and is responsible for starting to break down sugars.

On the other hand, the smaller the particles of the food we eat, the more easily they will be digested (broken down into smaller molecules) and more nutrients we will absorb. In theory, in an optimal situation, we should chew our food 25-40 times before swallowing.

In addition, chewing favors the feeling of satiety to appear earlier, which prevents the intake of food beyond the amount required by the body.

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