What Is Distracted Eating? The Hidden Impact on Weight, Digestion & Wellness

Distracted eating is common, and unfortunately, it does have health consequences. The good news? You can learn to cultivate more focused and mindful eating habits.

The Distracted Eating Epidemic - A Modern Problem

As a credentialed mindful eating instructor, spending time just focusing on my food is something I do routinely, and I enjoy it. But for lots of folks, only paying attention to the meal and eating process—even if the food is tasty—may seem, well, boring. I get it. We’ve become accustomed to multitasking our way through life, and eating is one of those things that’s actually easy to do while paying attention to something else. 

When I was a child, I used to read the cereal box while eating my breakfast. I couldn’t wait for a new box of cereal because I’d have memorized every word and done every kid-friendly “activity” presented on the box numerous times while I ate. Weekend breakfast time meant I could watch cartoons with my Dad while eating.  As I got older, I used my breakfast time as a chance to also finish reading my textbook or complete other schoolwork. None of this is unusual, I realize. Many of us grew up sitting in front of the TV for some meal or another. Heck, they didn’t call them TV Dinners for nothing!

But now screens are everywhere. More technology has meant more access to screens of all sizes, at any time of day or night. Between our computers, phones, tablets, and TVs, we’ve got the ability to work, entertain ourselves, or scroll every time we eat.

Of course, we can’t just blame screens for boosting distracted eating. There are other reasons: feeding an infant or helping someone else eat during mealtime distracts the caregiver from his or her own meal, eating while driving distracts from both the food and the driving (and is very dangerous!), and eating at work whether in the noisy and crowded breakroom or during a lunch meeting can be distracting and stressful. By and large, however, it’s the ubiquitous screens distracting us from feeding ourselves mindfully, so that’s what I’ll be focusing on for this article.

How Distractions Affect Your Eating Habits

When we’re distracted, our eating habits are affected—and most often in a negative way! As we move through life, if we continue to try to nourish ourselves while also being distracted, we’ll likely experience some consequences of firmly implanted eating habits. Here are the most problematic ways that eating distractions shape our eating habits:

Overeating 

This is the most widely researched aspect of distracted eating outcomes. A recently published study found that subjects, especially females, ate more food while watching a screen, regardless of the content. An interesting, though small study among young women showed a few patterns related to whether the TV program was considered boring to the subjects: when the show was boring, they ate more food. Compared to eating without distractions, reading a book or using a smartphone while eating prompted an increase in caloric intake of about 15% in this study that included males and females. And according to a systematic review and meta-analysis of 24 studies, there is ample data to suggest that distracted eating can lead to an increase in food intake—even among those who are actively trying to moderate their food intake in order to manage their weight. 

And not only does distracted eating impact immediate food intake, it may have an even greater impact on food eaten later that day. How is this possible? When attention is taken off the food, there is reduced awareness of what one has consumed. Distracted eating increases the cognitive “load” during the meal, which may decrease the amount of attention we have available for noticing the body’s satiation signals and other sensory information associated with eating. In essence, the combination of distracted eating and reduced awareness can promote overeating as well as disconnect us from our body signals for satiety.

Poor food choices 

There are mixed results from studies of the types of foods people eat when distracted. For example, some researchers have found that typically restrained eaters tend to eat more high-calorie foods when distracted by a high cognitive load; the opposite was found in unrestrained eaters. Another study found that when distractions are low, the ability to make healthy food choices appears easier; when distractions are higher, the subjects’ implicit attitudes towards foods they considered “healthy” or not guided their food choices. A takeaway here might be that when you expect to be distracted at mealtime, such as with a work meeting, making sure you have nutritious food options with you is a smart way to help yourself eat healthier. 

Eating too fast 

Eating quickly is a habit that many of us get into as we grow up and get busier, but being busy isn’t the same as being distracted. However, when we are distracted, we can be unaware of how fast we are eating. Faster eaters generally don’t chew their food as much, which can lead to eating more food but enjoying it less—and not feeling as satiated from it, either. When it’s time to eat, even a busy person can try to settle themselves for 15 or 20 minutes to eat undistracted. 

Health Consequences of Distracted Eating 

This is an ongoing area of research, but it’s already clear that eating while distracted doesn’t do our health any favors. Certainly, the eating habits discussed above are strongly linked to the health outcomes, including these:

• Increased chronic disease - Numerous studies have shown strong linear associations between increased TV time/screen use and increased diabetes, hypertension, metabolic syndrome, and other chronic conditions. Eating quickly can happen when distracted, and characteristics of a fast eater have been linked with increased risk of type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and renal dysfunction. It’s important to realize that increased screen time as a distraction is also associated with increased time being sedentary—also a factor in the development of some chronic diseases.

• Weight gain - It’s no surprise that overeating due to distraction can lead to weight gain. Watching television during meals has been found in numerous studies to be associated with higher body mass index (BMI). Again, the sedentary nature of many modern distractions doesn’t help in this situation, either. Eating speed may also be a factor here, since fast eaters have been shown to generally have a higher BMI.

• Digestive problems - Our digestive systems and our brains are linked through what’s known as the gut-brain axis. In fact, the digestion process starts before the food even gets to the stomach. Just the sight, smell, or anticipation of eating prompts the cephalic phase of digestion, when the brain prompts the body to release saliva, digestive hormones, and other gastric “juices.” Stress can interfere with digestion at any point in the digestive process, causing discomfort and diminished nourishment. In some ways, the distractions we experience when eating can be stressors (hello, social media, watching the news, being in a working lunch meeting, or viewing a scary or super exciting TV show). It may all be tied together for you, leading to IBS or another digestive issue. Finally, given that distracted eating can lead to fast eating and consuming more food overall, it makes sense that bloating, belching, and indigestion can be a result. 

Am I a Distracted Eater or a Mindless Eater?

On the surface, distracted eating and mindless eating seem like the same thing—basically, not paying attention while eating! However, they may not be interchangeable terms. As one research team notes in their published study, food intake decreased among participants of both sexes (ages 18-25) when food was presented with a distraction (in this case, the distraction was a validated computer task that assesses attention level). The authors contend that when someone is distracted from eating, he or she has already started to eat or intended to start eating, and was pulled away from the food.

Mindless eating, on the other hand, occurs when people start eating without even being aware they are doing it, often because of food being readily available in the environment or circumstance. Given this definition, one might postulate that mindless eating typically results in excess food intake since it wasn’t prompted by hunger and the eating was not intentional. 

This is an interesting distinction, but the bottom line is that both situations result in decreased awareness of the eating experience. So, although they likely aren’t exactly the same thing, both distracted eating and mindless eating disconnect us with our bodily signals related to hunger and fullness. And this can impede our enjoyment and satisfaction from eating.

Moving Toward Mindful Eating

Eating more mindfully can play a part in helping you curb distracted eating habits. When you practice mindful eating skills, you build more interoceptive awareness and may combat some of the memory-draining effects of distracted eating. Mindfulness in general is also beneficial for counteracting stress. Mindful eating practices are considered an effective addition to medications and other lifestyle modifications to address gastrointestinal problems and help optimize digestive function. 

You can start working on becoming a more mindful and less-distracted eater by doing the following. Start with one of these behaviors, and when it becomes a routine habit for you, add on the next one, and so on.

• Sit down for your meals and snacks. When we stand up to eat, there is a tendency to do other things as well, like straighten up the kitchen, flip through the mail, or make a to-do list. The practice of sitting down with food in front of you can become a cue to your brain and body that you’ll be focusing on simply eating. This may feel odd at first (especially sitting while having a snack), but it is a helpful practice to increase mindfulness and give yourself a chance to tune in to your body and just enjoy your food.. 

• Remove obvious distractions—when you eat, just eat. This is the most obvious and effective way to start encouraging yourself to focus on your eating habits. No screens, no work projects, no emails. When you are going to eat something—even if it’s just a snack, sit down and give your food and your body’s responses to that food—your full attention. 

• Stretch each meal to 15 minutes (20 is better). Eating more slowly is a classic characteristic of mindful eating. To help you slow your meals down, initially you may want to set a timer for 15 minutes (or set it for 7.5 minutes and aim to just be finishing half your meal when the timer goes off, then repeat). Pro tip: Don’t keep your phone on the table or counter to check how long you’ve been eating. Instead, you could set a timer and put the phone in the next room. Some people find setting a timer on the oven works, too. Setting a timer for your meals will feel weird at first, and if you can’t make it to 15 minutes right away, don’t worry, you can work up to it. Soon you’ll find that you like having more conversation with your dining partners, that putting your fork or spoon down periodically feels relaxing, and chewing your food more thoroughly and holding the food in your mouth a little longer helps you get more deliciousness out of your food.  

• Make a no-eating-while-driving rule. You can have this just for yourself or have it as a general “car rule.” Chomping on your breakfast or lunch while driving is dangerous and the furthest thing from mindful eating. Bonus: your car will stay cleaner! 

Which of these ideas can you start incorporating into your life this week?

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