Television and Food

Watching movies or television with a little snacky-snack has kind of become the norm. Unfortunately, merging the two pleasures: taste and sight, is apparently affecting our waistlines.  Big shocker.  According to an article on NPR, binge watching can often result in binge eating.

This is exactly why I have to limit my movie watching to Friday nights.  I personally love a little treat when I sit down to watch a movie–both sitting down to relax and the treat are huge indulgences for me.  While in recent months, my treat has been swapped out for rug hooking {my pants thank me}, I can totally see how this whole instant streaming thing might lead to over-consumption of red vines…or whatever.

The article followed cited a couple different studies, but one in particular, done by a University of Houston professor found a direct correlation between the numbers of hours people spent watching television to the quantity of unhealthy eating habits they had.  Plus, people who ate in front of the television or while watching television missed cues that they were full.  I think they call that mindless eating.  They also tended to eat at the pace of the show they were watching…so highly stressful shows or highly emotional shows elicited stronger desire cues for something to nosh on {likely due to the increased cortisol and emotional eating}.

The takeaway toward the end of the article was to measure out quantities consciously before turning on the television…or to choose healthier options, like sliced up veggies.  I think I personally will stick to keeping my hands busy with my hooking.

While the article is totally common sense when you get right down to it, I guess I never really stopped to think about binge watching leading to binge eating it until I read it.

How about you, do you think you eat more when you binge watch television?  Or do you have a strict separation of t.v. and food?

~Mavis