Eating on the move not a good idea

Eating on the go may be worse than eating in front of the television, a new study reports, and may lead people to overindulge later.

Resear-chers recruited 60 adult women, split them into three groups and asked women in each group to eat a cereal bar under different conditions: while walking, while talking to a friend and while watching a television clip.

The subjects then were given a taste test in which they could eat as many M&Ms, carrot sticks, grapes and salty crisps as they liked. Participants watching their weight ate less than others during the taste test if they had eaten the cereal bar in front of the television. But women who had eaten the cereal bar while walking ate much more during the taste test.

Eating on the go may not register in the mind as eating, and may even register as exercise, said Jane Ogden, a University of Surrey psychology professor and lead author of the study, published in The Journal of Health Psychology.

“The trick is to try and eat in a conscious and focused way — mindfully,” she said.