eMedicineLive

In today’s world, where obesity has reached epidemic proportions, new studies are being conducted everyday to find its causes and effective ways to prevent it. A similar study, published in the August 2011 issue of the "American Journal of Clinical Nutrition", has found that meal monotony can help you lose weight. According to the authors of the study, eating food triggers release of certain chemicals in the brain, exactly like what happens in case of substance abuse. If the exposure to the substance is repeated, a time will come when the abuser becomes tolerant or habituated to it. This habituation can lead to an absence of response. Something akin happens when a person is exposed to same type of food everyday. Slowly, he becomes habituated to the sight of that food and becomes disinterested in it. This in turn leads to reduced calorie consumption and can help the person to lose weight.

 

According to the “food addiction hypothesis”, some people overeat because they take more time to become habituated to the food and become disinterested in it. So far, very few studies have been done to find out the difference in between the habituation processes in healthy-weight and over-weight individuals. Similarly, little is known about the types of foods which initiate a strong habituation on exposure. To bridge some of these gaps, a study was designed to assess long term habituation in 16 obese and 16 non-obese pre-menopausal women. The women, aged between 20 and 50 years were randomly assigned to receive macaroni and cheese meal presented 5 times, either daily for 1 wk or once per week for 5 wk. It was found that in both obese and non-obese women, daily presentation of food resulted in faster habituation and less energy intake than did once-weekly presentation of food. 

 

The study concluded that reducing variety in food choices may represent an important strategy for those trying to lose weight. The weight lose program will be even more effective if the person remembers how many times he has had the same food in the recent past. However, meal monotony to reduce calorie consumption does not mean that one should forget about the nutritional value of the food. Try to reduce the variety of food being consumed but not the nutrients in the food.

 

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