Snacking
Encyclopedia
Snacking does not have a concrete definition. A study taken by Katherine Chaplin and Andrew Smith from the journal Appetite says, “Participants defined snacking as food or drink eaten between main meals” . As told in the textbook Nutrition: Concepts and Controversies by Frances Sienkiewicz Sizer and Ellie Whitney, sedentary men have a recommended daily calorie intake of about 2400 kcal. For sedentary women the intake is about 2000 kcal . The average calorie intake during a meal is about 500 kilocalories leaving a range of 300-800 kilocalories for those snacks between meals. Overdoing this daily allowance can cause weight gain no matter if the snack is healthy or unhealthy.
A healthy snack is one that leaves a feeling of satiation and satiety. Satiation occurs when the brain acknowledges that enough food has been eaten. There are triggers in the body that send these signals to the brain. Sizer and Whitney say a, “Greater exposure of the mouth to food triggers increased satiation. When the stomach stretches to accommodate a meal, nerve receptors in the stomach fire, sending a signal to the brain that the stomach is full”. Healthy snacks are ones that leave the body feeling filled so that it does not continue to signal to the brain that it still wants food. Satiety occurs after a snack, suppressing hunger or regulating how often the body desires food. Choosing snacks that have high water content, are airy, high in fiber
and protein
causes stronger satiety signals making the time between meals longer. Fat
triggers a hormone that increases satiety as well.
Discretion should be used to determine whether one snack is a better choice than another based on nutrient density
. The Dietary Reference Intake
(DRI) establishes the amount of nutrients required daily to avoid deficiencies and allow the body to function properly. Knowing that one snack has more nutrients than another per calorie can help provide required nutrients without exceeding the discretionary calorie allowance. When analyzing the ratio of nutrients to calories in foods, the caloric level must be lower than the nutrient level in order for it to be nutrient dense. Otherwise, it could potentially cause a deficiency in an essential nutrient.
In contrast to nutrient density, energy density
is the amount of calories per gram of food. For instance, snacking on two scoops (1 c.) of chocolate ice cream contains 287 calories per 132 grams making the energy density 2.17. As an alternative, one could have a snack containing celery (2 stalks), peanut butter (1 Tbsp), milk (1 c.), and an apple, which would contain similar calorie content (281 calories), but weigh 478 grams making the energy density .59. One could also have salads, fruits, nuts, frozen yogurt and cereal (1 c.) without milk. These foods help quite often especially when you're under pressure or frustrated. A low energy density is preferable because the food has a low ratio of calories to grams, allowing one to consume more food per calorie. Choosing the second snack with the lower energy density will increase the amount of food ingested which will increase satiation and satiety levels while increasing nutrient intake compared to the first snack option of chocolate ice cream.
Snacking on foods low in energy density, high in nutrient density, and that follow the five characteristics of healthy snacking increase satiation and satiety. Sustaining a high level of satiation and satiety helps keep one in the caloric discretionary allowance, and helps one maintain a healthy body weight.
, metabolism
decreases and food cravings increase, causing a binge in eating high carbohydrate
foods. Neuropeptide Y
(NPY) is a chemical in the brain produced during periods of starvation that triggers the need for carbohydrates. After a bout of starvation, NPY causes an eating binge of carbohydrates in which one surpasses the daily allowance causing weight gain. Ingesting carbohydrates causes an increase in serotonin
production which cancels the production of NPY. The longer the starvation period, the more intense food cravings become, making it difficult to follow the five characteristics of healthy snacking .
Other unhealthy snacking patterns include emotional eating, eating for convenience, and food availability. Emotional eating occurs when people use food to cope with emotional triggers including boredom
, procrastination
, excitement, love
, frustration, stress
, and mild depression
. Eating for convenience occurs when people choose to snack on energy dense food that is readily available. In some areas the only food available is processed food which is energy dense and low in essential nutrients . Sizer and Whitney say, “A steady diet of such foods can easily lead to both obesity
and malnutrition
” . These foods are high in calories, fat, salt, and have a very low nutrient density.
Results: As snacking frequency increased in the adolescents, the amount of carbohydrates consumed increased along with sugar
consumption. The consumption of fats and energy-adjusted proteins decreased . Increased snacking frequency positively affected the intake of vitamin A
, vitamin E
, vitamin C
, and magnesium
in boys and vitamin C in girls. Fruit intake increased as snacking frequency increased for both boys and girls. The three cup daily milk recommendation was met for boys snacking at the highest level, but girls did not meet the milk recommendation . Milk is one of the highest contributors in adolescents’ calcium consumption. Although, during the past 25 years, people have moved toward dietary habits of snacking rather than daily meals, meals generally contribute more nutrient-dense foods to a diet than snacks. In order to make up for this loss of nutrients, snack choices need to consist of nutrient-dense foods. Snacking frequency improved the chance of meeting fruit recommendations for boys and girls, milk and oil recommendations for boys, and affected the intake of all macronutrients and some micronutrients.
(kcal) intake decreases. The study says, “Comparisons between 25- and 70-year-olds showed declines of 1,000 to 1,200 kcal/day for men and 600 to 800 kcal/day for women” . Reasons for this decline include physiological changes, a switch in the sensation of thirst and hunger, chronic diseases, a decline in physical functioning, limited resources and social factors, namely widowhood. Healthy older persons’ low intakes of protein, carbohydrate, fat, and total energy were found to be strong predictors of mortality. These low intakes can also cause unwanted weight loss which is related to potential life-threatening physical limitations . This loss of weight can be prevented by instituting a proper diet.
Results: In a sample of 2,002 older people, ages 65+, 84% were ambitious snackers. Nonsnackers ingested an average of 1,466 kilocalories daily while snackers ingested an average of 1,718 kcal . The US Department of Agriculture’s MyPyramid states that the recommended consumption of energy for older adults is 1,600 kcal . The study shows that, “In this age group, snacking contributed approximately a quarter of their daily energy and carbohydrate intakes and a fifth of their daily fat intake” . Adding healthful snacking to the dietary behavior of older adults in Zizza, Tayie, and Lino’s study proved to increase their total energy intake preventing inadequate diets .
(BED), and psychological stress to night eating syndrome
(NES). This syndrome constitutes a pattern of eating where most food is consumed late in the day and at night, sometimes including waking up during the night to snack. It causes morning anorexia
and evening hyperphagia and insomnia
. This condition is observed most frequently in overweight and obese people. Being a recent syndrome
to emerge, the study says, “It is currently unclear whether NES, as a discrete condition, is associated with emotional distress, impairment or disability, and thereby represents an eating disorder of clinical significance” . It may just be a behavioral condition linked to obesity and weight gain. The study was conducted by distributing surveys to people ages 18–70 that had not undergone previous bariatric surgery
.
Results: NES and BMI are positively related, meaning that the generalized belief that NES is associated with overweight and obese individuals has a stronger basis for being true. To relate NES with BED the study showed, “[Binge-eaters] were almost seven times more likely to manifest NES than non-[binge-eaters]” . This showed that it is common for individuals that show traits of NES also have BED. The results, however, for the relation between NES and psychological distress were found to contrast those for BED. Individuals who exhibited traits of NES showed low psychological distress, whereas those who were binge-eaters showed high psychological distress. This showed that those who exhibited signs of BED were more likely to be depressed and concerned about their weight. This study was the first to observe differences between those who did and did not wake up for nocturnal snacks. The study shows that, “Frequent nocturnal snackers reported higher symptoms of depression and hunger . . . compared to the NES who did not wake to eat” . This shows clinical significance and that nocturnal snackers have a more severe impairment than individuals with NES.
Rutger C.M.E. Engels recorded a study of the effect of television viewing on adolescents’ snacking. They explain three theories on the relationship between eating behavior and being overweight and how they relate to watching television. The first theory centers on external eating declaring that some people are more sensitive to food cues than others. Food cues found on television include food advertisements. Certain people can be influenced by these cues regardless of their state of hunger and satiety . The second theory is the restraint theory, which states, “Dieting can lead to overeating” . Weight-related advertisements and images of a stereotypical attractive female on television can generate negative feelings toward the body and low self-esteem
in individuals who are dieting causing them to overeat . The third theory is known as the psychosomatic theory, which deals with those who eat in response to their emotions. In these individuals, negative emotions cause excessive eating rather than the normal response of appetite
loss . The study used 10,087 Dutch adolescents 11–16 years of age. Snacking was measured as, “The number of sweet and/or savory snacks respondents usually ate per day” . The participants were required to rate their frequency of television viewing and measure their eating behavior through a questionnaire
.
Results: Participants who received a high score under the external eating category of the questionnaire ate more snacks than those who did not; those who received a high score under the restrained eating category ate fewer snacks than those who did not; and those who received a high score under the emotional eating category ate more snacks than those who did not . The study showed that external and emotional eaters were more likely to snack when influenced by television and restrained eaters were less likely to snack due to the influence of television. The study shares that, “The interaction between [television viewing], emotional eating and snacking was only significant for boys,” possibly due to the, “inadequacy in dealing with negative emotions,” which might be a personality trait that is different from men to women.
Healthy Snacking
There are five characteristics of healthy snacking. These characteristics are adequacy, balance, calorie control, moderation, and variety. Together, they work to build a nutritious diet. Adequacy consists of consuming the correct amount of essential nutrients, fiber, and energy daily. Having balance in a diet requires not choosing a certain nutrient group more than another nutrient group, but rather requires one to provide enough of all the essential nutrients. Calorie control is the amount of food required to maintain a healthy weight. Having moderation entails limiting intake of fat, sugar, and salt without total self-restraint. Variety in a diet causes an increase in adequacy and helps eating become a more pleasurable experience.A healthy snack is one that leaves a feeling of satiation and satiety. Satiation occurs when the brain acknowledges that enough food has been eaten. There are triggers in the body that send these signals to the brain. Sizer and Whitney say a, “Greater exposure of the mouth to food triggers increased satiation. When the stomach stretches to accommodate a meal, nerve receptors in the stomach fire, sending a signal to the brain that the stomach is full”. Healthy snacks are ones that leave the body feeling filled so that it does not continue to signal to the brain that it still wants food. Satiety occurs after a snack, suppressing hunger or regulating how often the body desires food. Choosing snacks that have high water content, are airy, high in fiber
Fiber
Fiber is a class of materials that are continuous filaments or are in discrete elongated pieces, similar to lengths of thread.They are very important in the biology of both plants and animals, for holding tissues together....
and protein
Protein
Proteins are biochemical compounds consisting of one or more polypeptides typically folded into a globular or fibrous form, facilitating a biological function. A polypeptide is a single linear polymer chain of amino acids bonded together by peptide bonds between the carboxyl and amino groups of...
causes stronger satiety signals making the time between meals longer. Fat
Fat
Fats consist of a wide group of compounds that are generally soluble in organic solvents and generally insoluble in water. Chemically, fats are triglycerides, triesters of glycerol and any of several fatty acids. Fats may be either solid or liquid at room temperature, depending on their structure...
triggers a hormone that increases satiety as well.
Discretion should be used to determine whether one snack is a better choice than another based on nutrient density
Nutrient density
The term nutrient density has several meanings.Most commonly, nutrient density is defined as a ratio of nutrient content to the total energy content . Nutrient-dense food is opposite to energy-dense food...
. The Dietary Reference Intake
Dietary Reference Intake
The Dietary Reference Intake is a system of nutrition recommendations from the Institute of Medicine of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. The DRI system is used by both the United States and Canada and is intended for the general public and health professionals...
(DRI) establishes the amount of nutrients required daily to avoid deficiencies and allow the body to function properly. Knowing that one snack has more nutrients than another per calorie can help provide required nutrients without exceeding the discretionary calorie allowance. When analyzing the ratio of nutrients to calories in foods, the caloric level must be lower than the nutrient level in order for it to be nutrient dense. Otherwise, it could potentially cause a deficiency in an essential nutrient.
In contrast to nutrient density, energy density
Energy density
Energy density is a term used for the amount of energy stored in a given system or region of space per unit volume. Often only the useful or extractable energy is quantified, which is to say that chemically inaccessible energy such as rest mass energy is ignored...
is the amount of calories per gram of food. For instance, snacking on two scoops (1 c.) of chocolate ice cream contains 287 calories per 132 grams making the energy density 2.17. As an alternative, one could have a snack containing celery (2 stalks), peanut butter (1 Tbsp), milk (1 c.), and an apple, which would contain similar calorie content (281 calories), but weigh 478 grams making the energy density .59. One could also have salads, fruits, nuts, frozen yogurt and cereal (1 c.) without milk. These foods help quite often especially when you're under pressure or frustrated. A low energy density is preferable because the food has a low ratio of calories to grams, allowing one to consume more food per calorie. Choosing the second snack with the lower energy density will increase the amount of food ingested which will increase satiation and satiety levels while increasing nutrient intake compared to the first snack option of chocolate ice cream.
Snacking on foods low in energy density, high in nutrient density, and that follow the five characteristics of healthy snacking increase satiation and satiety. Sustaining a high level of satiation and satiety helps keep one in the caloric discretionary allowance, and helps one maintain a healthy body weight.
Unhealthy Snacking
One form of unhealthy snacking is caused by not eating. Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch claim in their book Intuitive Eating that the symptoms of starvation occur when the absence of eating is extended longer than a period of three to six hours . When the body undergoes a period of starvationStarvation
Starvation is a severe deficiency in caloric energy, nutrient and vitamin intake. It is the most extreme form of malnutrition. In humans, prolonged starvation can cause permanent organ damage and eventually, death...
, metabolism
Metabolism
Metabolism is the set of chemical reactions that happen in the cells of living organisms to sustain life. These processes allow organisms to grow and reproduce, maintain their structures, and respond to their environments. Metabolism is usually divided into two categories...
decreases and food cravings increase, causing a binge in eating high carbohydrate
Carbohydrate
A carbohydrate is an organic compound with the empirical formula ; that is, consists only of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, with a hydrogen:oxygen atom ratio of 2:1 . However, there are exceptions to this. One common example would be deoxyribose, a component of DNA, which has the empirical...
foods. Neuropeptide Y
Neuropeptide Y
Neuropeptide Y is a 36-amino acid peptide neurotransmitter found in the brain and autonomic nervous system."NPY has been associated with a number of physiologic processes in the brain, including the regulation of energy balance, memory and learning, and epilepsy." The main effect is increased food...
(NPY) is a chemical in the brain produced during periods of starvation that triggers the need for carbohydrates. After a bout of starvation, NPY causes an eating binge of carbohydrates in which one surpasses the daily allowance causing weight gain. Ingesting carbohydrates causes an increase in serotonin
Serotonin
Serotonin or 5-hydroxytryptamine is a monoamine neurotransmitter. Biochemically derived from tryptophan, serotonin is primarily found in the gastrointestinal tract, platelets, and in the central nervous system of animals including humans...
production which cancels the production of NPY. The longer the starvation period, the more intense food cravings become, making it difficult to follow the five characteristics of healthy snacking .
Other unhealthy snacking patterns include emotional eating, eating for convenience, and food availability. Emotional eating occurs when people use food to cope with emotional triggers including boredom
Boredom
Boredom is an emotional state experienced when an individual is without any activity or is not interested in their surroundings. The first recorded use of the word boredom is in the novel Bleak House by Charles Dickens, written in 1852, in which it appears six times, although the expression to be a...
, procrastination
Procrastination
In psychology, procrastination refers to the act of replacing high-priority actions with tasks of low-priority, and thus putting off important tasks to a later time...
, excitement, love
Love
Love is an emotion of strong affection and personal attachment. In philosophical context, love is a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection. Love is central to many religions, as in the Christian phrase, "God is love" or Agape in the Canonical gospels...
, frustration, stress
Stress (biology)
Stress is a term in psychology and biology, borrowed from physics and engineering and first used in the biological context in the 1930s, which has in more recent decades become commonly used in popular parlance...
, and mild depression
Depression (mood)
Depression is a state of low mood and aversion to activity that can affect a person's thoughts, behaviour, feelings and physical well-being. Depressed people may feel sad, anxious, empty, hopeless, helpless, worthless, guilty, irritable, or restless...
. Eating for convenience occurs when people choose to snack on energy dense food that is readily available. In some areas the only food available is processed food which is energy dense and low in essential nutrients . Sizer and Whitney say, “A steady diet of such foods can easily lead to both obesity
Obesity
Obesity is a medical condition in which excess body fat has accumulated to the extent that it may have an adverse effect on health, leading to reduced life expectancy and/or increased health problems...
and malnutrition
Malnutrition
Malnutrition is the condition that results from taking an unbalanced diet in which certain nutrients are lacking, in excess , or in the wrong proportions....
” . These foods are high in calories, fat, salt, and have a very low nutrient density.
Consumer Perception
There is a change in the attitude of individuals when they are told that a snack is either healthy or unhealthy. Janet Polivy and C. Peter Herman noted that individuals generally believe that whether a snack is healthy or not is based on its calorie and fat content. A “healthy” food is thought to be one that contains a low number of calories, and an “unhealthy” food is thought to be one that contains a high number of calories. Adding to that, restaurants that claim they serve “healthy” foods sometimes lead their customers to believe that that means their food has low calorie content . Noting the perception of individuals on the healthiness of foods, snacks are perceived similarly to other foods and can be regarded as healthy or unhealthy based on their caloric content. Polivy and Herman found, in a study they performed on the perceived healthiness of a snack, that if the snack was regarded as healthy the participants ate 35% more of that snack than when the snack was regarded as unhealthy .Snacking Frequency in Adolescents
It was found in a study by Rhonda S. Sebastian, Linda E. Cleveland, and Joseph D. Goldman that snacking occasions for all age groups has increased over the last 25 years . 4,357 adolescents ages 12–19 were surveyed in order to find how the consumption of nutrients and the meeting of recommendations by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s MyPyramid Food Guidance System are impacted by the adolescents’ snacking level.Results: As snacking frequency increased in the adolescents, the amount of carbohydrates consumed increased along with sugar
Sugar
Sugar is a class of edible crystalline carbohydrates, mainly sucrose, lactose, and fructose, characterized by a sweet flavor.Sucrose in its refined form primarily comes from sugar cane and sugar beet...
consumption. The consumption of fats and energy-adjusted proteins decreased . Increased snacking frequency positively affected the intake of vitamin A
Vitamin A
Vitamin A is a vitamin that is needed by the retina of the eye in the form of a specific metabolite, the light-absorbing molecule retinal, that is necessary for both low-light and color vision...
, vitamin E
Vitamin E
Vitamin E is used to refer to a group of fat-soluble compounds that include both tocopherols and tocotrienols. There are many different forms of vitamin E, of which γ-tocopherol is the most common in the North American diet. γ-Tocopherol can be found in corn oil, soybean oil, margarine and dressings...
, vitamin C
Vitamin C
Vitamin C or L-ascorbic acid or L-ascorbate is an essential nutrient for humans and certain other animal species. In living organisms ascorbate acts as an antioxidant by protecting the body against oxidative stress...
, and magnesium
Magnesium
Magnesium is a chemical element with the symbol Mg, atomic number 12, and common oxidation number +2. It is an alkaline earth metal and the eighth most abundant element in the Earth's crust and ninth in the known universe as a whole...
in boys and vitamin C in girls. Fruit intake increased as snacking frequency increased for both boys and girls. The three cup daily milk recommendation was met for boys snacking at the highest level, but girls did not meet the milk recommendation . Milk is one of the highest contributors in adolescents’ calcium consumption. Although, during the past 25 years, people have moved toward dietary habits of snacking rather than daily meals, meals generally contribute more nutrient-dense foods to a diet than snacks. In order to make up for this loss of nutrients, snack choices need to consist of nutrient-dense foods. Snacking frequency improved the chance of meeting fruit recommendations for boys and girls, milk and oil recommendations for boys, and affected the intake of all macronutrients and some micronutrients.
Benefits of Snacking for Older People
Claire A. Zizza, Francis A. Tayie, and Mark Lino studied the effects of snacking on older Americans. As humans age, it is known that their energyEnergy
In physics, energy is an indirectly observed quantity. It is often understood as the ability a physical system has to do work on other physical systems...
(kcal) intake decreases. The study says, “Comparisons between 25- and 70-year-olds showed declines of 1,000 to 1,200 kcal/day for men and 600 to 800 kcal/day for women” . Reasons for this decline include physiological changes, a switch in the sensation of thirst and hunger, chronic diseases, a decline in physical functioning, limited resources and social factors, namely widowhood. Healthy older persons’ low intakes of protein, carbohydrate, fat, and total energy were found to be strong predictors of mortality. These low intakes can also cause unwanted weight loss which is related to potential life-threatening physical limitations . This loss of weight can be prevented by instituting a proper diet.
Results: In a sample of 2,002 older people, ages 65+, 84% were ambitious snackers. Nonsnackers ingested an average of 1,466 kilocalories daily while snackers ingested an average of 1,718 kcal . The US Department of Agriculture’s MyPyramid states that the recommended consumption of energy for older adults is 1,600 kcal . The study shows that, “In this age group, snacking contributed approximately a quarter of their daily energy and carbohydrate intakes and a fifth of their daily fat intake” . Adding healthful snacking to the dietary behavior of older adults in Zizza, Tayie, and Lino’s study proved to increase their total energy intake preventing inadequate diets .
Night-time Snacking
A study done by SL Colles, JB Dixon, and PE O’Brien on snacking at night relates obesity, binge eating disorderBinge eating disorder
Binge eating disorder is the most common eating disorder in the United States affecting 3.5% of females and 2% of males and is prevalent in up to 30% of those seeking weight loss treatment...
(BED), and psychological stress to night eating syndrome
Night eating syndrome
Night eating syndrome, or NES, is an emerging eating disorder diagnosis, which primarily characterizes an ongoing, persistent pattern of late-night binge eating....
(NES). This syndrome constitutes a pattern of eating where most food is consumed late in the day and at night, sometimes including waking up during the night to snack. It causes morning anorexia
Anorexia (symptom)
Anorexia is the decreased sensation of appetite...
and evening hyperphagia and insomnia
Insomnia
Insomnia is most often defined by an individual's report of sleeping difficulties. While the term is sometimes used in sleep literature to describe a disorder demonstrated by polysomnographic evidence of disturbed sleep, insomnia is often defined as a positive response to either of two questions:...
. This condition is observed most frequently in overweight and obese people. Being a recent syndrome
Syndrome
In medicine and psychology, a syndrome is the association of several clinically recognizable features, signs , symptoms , phenomena or characteristics that often occur together, so that the presence of one or more features alerts the physician to the possible presence of the others...
to emerge, the study says, “It is currently unclear whether NES, as a discrete condition, is associated with emotional distress, impairment or disability, and thereby represents an eating disorder of clinical significance” . It may just be a behavioral condition linked to obesity and weight gain. The study was conducted by distributing surveys to people ages 18–70 that had not undergone previous bariatric surgery
Bariatric surgery
Bariatric surgery includes a variety of procedures performed on people who are obese. Weight loss is achieved by reducing the size of the stomach with an implanted medical device or through removal of a portion of the stomach or by resecting and re-routing the small intestines...
.
Results: NES and BMI are positively related, meaning that the generalized belief that NES is associated with overweight and obese individuals has a stronger basis for being true. To relate NES with BED the study showed, “[Binge-eaters] were almost seven times more likely to manifest NES than non-[binge-eaters]” . This showed that it is common for individuals that show traits of NES also have BED. The results, however, for the relation between NES and psychological distress were found to contrast those for BED. Individuals who exhibited traits of NES showed low psychological distress, whereas those who were binge-eaters showed high psychological distress. This showed that those who exhibited signs of BED were more likely to be depressed and concerned about their weight. This study was the first to observe differences between those who did and did not wake up for nocturnal snacks. The study shows that, “Frequent nocturnal snackers reported higher symptoms of depression and hunger . . . compared to the NES who did not wake to eat” . This shows clinical significance and that nocturnal snackers have a more severe impairment than individuals with NES.
The Effect of Watching Television on Snacking
Harriëtte M. Snoek, Tatjana van Strien, Jan M.A.M. Janssens, andRutger C.M.E. Engels recorded a study of the effect of television viewing on adolescents’ snacking. They explain three theories on the relationship between eating behavior and being overweight and how they relate to watching television. The first theory centers on external eating declaring that some people are more sensitive to food cues than others. Food cues found on television include food advertisements. Certain people can be influenced by these cues regardless of their state of hunger and satiety . The second theory is the restraint theory, which states, “Dieting can lead to overeating” . Weight-related advertisements and images of a stereotypical attractive female on television can generate negative feelings toward the body and low self-esteem
Self-esteem
Self-esteem is a term in psychology to reflect a person's overall evaluation or appraisal of his or her own worth. Self-esteem encompasses beliefs and emotions such as triumph, despair, pride and shame: some would distinguish how 'the self-concept is what we think about the self; self-esteem, the...
in individuals who are dieting causing them to overeat . The third theory is known as the psychosomatic theory, which deals with those who eat in response to their emotions. In these individuals, negative emotions cause excessive eating rather than the normal response of appetite
Appetite
The appetite is the desire to eat food, felt as hunger. Appetite exists in all higher life-forms, and serves to regulate adequate energy intake to maintain metabolic needs. It is regulated by a close interplay between the digestive tract, adipose tissue and the brain. Decreased desire to eat is...
loss . The study used 10,087 Dutch adolescents 11–16 years of age. Snacking was measured as, “The number of sweet and/or savory snacks respondents usually ate per day” . The participants were required to rate their frequency of television viewing and measure their eating behavior through a questionnaire
Questionnaire
A questionnaire is a research instrument consisting of a series of questions and other prompts for the purpose of gathering information from respondents. Although they are often designed for statistical analysis of the responses, this is not always the case...
.
Results: Participants who received a high score under the external eating category of the questionnaire ate more snacks than those who did not; those who received a high score under the restrained eating category ate fewer snacks than those who did not; and those who received a high score under the emotional eating category ate more snacks than those who did not . The study showed that external and emotional eaters were more likely to snack when influenced by television and restrained eaters were less likely to snack due to the influence of television. The study shares that, “The interaction between [television viewing], emotional eating and snacking was only significant for boys,” possibly due to the, “inadequacy in dealing with negative emotions,” which might be a personality trait that is different from men to women.