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Obese people get less satisfaction from food
Last reviewed: 02.07.2025
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Regular overeating in obese people is associated with lower satisfaction from food. That is, people get less pleasure from eating food - as a result, they begin to eat more of it.
Excess kilograms negatively affect not only metabolic processes, but also human eating behavior. Experts representing Bangor University conducted such an experiment. They offered several dozen people (among them were both overweight and normal-sized people) to install a certain application on their smartphones. Every day, they were required to mark when they had the thought of eating, how strong this desire was - regardless of whether they ate food or not. If the thought of food was followed by a meal, then the participant had to note whether he received satisfaction from the food. It was also necessary to note how many times a day there were meals, and how long each absorption process lasted. Then the participants filled out a special questionnaire, where they indicated whether they suffered from an increased craving for food without the presence of a feeling of hunger.
During the experiment, it was discovered that volunteers with and without excess weight differed little in their behavior: their meals were approximately the same in duration, and thoughts about the need to “chew something” came at approximately equal intervals. The intensity of the feeling of hunger was also approximately the same. The only differences were in the feeling experienced during and after eating. Thus, the participants suffering from excess weight did not always like the food they ate - that is, they did not get the proper pleasure from it. It was this factor that subsequently influenced the fact that they wanted to eat more and more - however, not in order to get rid of the feeling of hunger, but in order to get at least a small portion of the pleasure that they lacked. By the way, scientists had conducted a similar experiment before, but in laboratory conditions.
Today's study points to natural behavioral characteristics of people living in normal conditions, not limited to the laboratory. However, now scientists are faced with another question: does satisfaction from food disappear with the appearance of excess weight, or vice versa - does a violation of satisfaction lead to the development of obesity?
In any case, the lack of food satisfaction and excess weight are mutually reinforcing. Will scientists continue to work on creating a drug that would return positive emotions associated with food to people? Maybe this could be one of the ways to solve the problem of overeating and excess weight.
Details of the experiment are described on the pages of Eating Behaviors (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1471015317304609).
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