Jakarta –
Obesity can be prevented in a cheap, easy, and effective way. Researchers in Japan said that eating slowly could be the solution. Here’s the explanation.
Obesity prevention strategies usually only focus on food choices that a person eats, but forget to consider other factors that are no less important. One of them is habits or how to eat.
Quote Science Daily (3/25/2025), researchers at Fujita Health University, Japan, investigated other factors that affect obesity conditions. Seline how to eat, they also see the duration of eating, gender differences, and rhythmic cues.
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This research is important because obesity is a serious health problem. Obesity is associated with various health complications, such as diabetes, heart disease, and liver fat.
The research team was led by Professor Katsumi IIizuka from the Clinical Nutrition Department. Then assisted by Dr. Megumi Aoshima and Dr. Kanako Deguchi.
Their findings were published in the journal Nutrients 6, Volume 17 on March 10, 2025.
This study involved 33 healthy participants aged 20 to 65 years. They were asked to eat a pizza in different conditions.
 Eating slowly can prevent obesity as revealed by Japanese researchers. Photo: Istock |
The researcher then measures the duration of eating, the amount of chewing, the amount of bite, and tempo chewing (the speed of chewing). Researchers also pay attention to how these variables change when participants are faced with different metronome rhythms using headphones.
The results showed a significant difference between men and women in eating behavior. Women usually need more time to eat, an average of 87 seconds compared to 63 seconds for men.
Women also chew more (an average of 107 vs. 80) and bite more (4.5 vs. 2,1). However, Tempo chews actually similar between the two sexes.
When adjusted to the difference in sex, the duration of eating is positively associated with the amount of chewing and bite, but not with an average body mass index or an average eating tempo.
Perhaps the most interesting, when participants are faced with a slow metronome rhythm of about 40 beats per minute, their eating duration increases significantly compared to eating without rhythmic stimulation.
Researchers conclude, an easy and inexpensive strategy to prevent obesity is to extend the duration of eating.
You do this by increasing the amount of chewing per bite, taking smaller bites (which naturally increases the total number of bite per meal time), and choosing a place to eat that makes them calm.
The results of this study also emphasized that the prevention of obesity is not only a matter of regulating the nutritional content of food, but also a guide to behavioral and environmental factors that make a person eat more slowly.
 Eating slowly is considered a cheap and easy way to prevent obesity. Photo: Getty Images/Hispanolistic |
“Combining the proposed eating behavior into school lunch programs and other programs can lead to future disease prevention related to obesity,” Izuka said.
The researchers acknowledge that future studies must test these findings with a variety of foods other than pizza to ensure their application in various eating scenarios.
Nevertheless, this research provides valuable evidence for obesity prevention and treatment programs, without significant cost or complexity.
(ADR/ODI)
