In our busy daily life, everyone's eating speed is also different: some people are used to eating quickly, while others are used to chewing slowly. So, what kind of eating habits do you have? Do you eat fast everyday?

Attention! Try not to eat too fast, or it may affect your health.

  1. Influence of eating speed on health

The choice of speed at the table is not trivial.

For those who are used to eating fast, they often unconsciously eat too much food before the brain receives the signal of satiety. This unintentional overeating may lead to weight increase gradually over time, thus increasing the possibility of health risks such as obesity, hyperlipidemia and metabolic syndrome. In addition, swallowing food quickly may also cause indigestion, because food not fully chewed increases the burden on the stomach, which may cause gastrointestinal problems such as gastritis for a long time.

In contrast, slow eaters seem to be able to avoid these health risks to some extent. Research shows that slower eating speed helps reduce food intake, because it gives the brain enough time to deal with satiety, thereby reducing the risk of overeating. For example, the study found that children who ate slowly had a 39% lower risk of being overweight than those who ate fast.

On the whole, from a healthy point of view, eating slowly is obviously a more beneficial choice.

By recognizing the impact of eating speed on health and taking appropriate adjustments, we can better maintain our health.

  2 How to control your eating speed?

At present, no research has provided an accurate recommended eating speed. It is generally believed that the ideal eating speed should allow a meal to last about 20~30 minutes, because it takes about this long for the brain to receive the satiety signal.

So, how can we achieve this goal?

First, try to consciously slow down your meal. You can monitor your meal time through a timer to ensure that each meal lasts at least 20 minutes. Another method is to increase the number of times of chewing. For example, add more green leafy vegetables and other foods that need to be chewed for many times. Chew 20 to 30 times per mouthful of food. This will not only help digestion of food, but also extend the meal time.

Using smaller cutlery is also an effective technique. Small spoons and forks will limit the amount of food in each bite, naturally slowing down your eating speed. In addition, after every few mouthfuls of food, put down the tableware, take a deep breath, or drink a little water, which can help you slow down and consciously enjoy every mouthful of food.

Finally, it is also important to avoid distractions during meals. Try not to watch TV or play with your mobile phone while eating, because it will make you unconsciously speed up your eating.

We can integrate these methods into our lives and find the trigger factors for our fast meals. You can make a record of each meal within a week: where you ate, what you were doing during the meal, how you felt, and how much time it took to complete it.

This will not only help you identify the specific situations that lead to fast eating, but also help you realize which moments you are more inclined to enjoy food slowly. Integrating these strategies into our daily life does not mean that we are overly obsessed with eating, but that we hope to promote a healthier lifestyle by adjusting the eating speed.

In short, changing habits takes time and sustained effort. Take your time and find the most suitable healthy eating speed through practice, so that food can become a kind of enjoyment in life.

Author: Jiang Yongyuan, Master of Internal Medicine, Third Military Medical University

Reviewed by: Zhong Kaikexin Director of Food and Health Information Exchange Center