Rapid Eating is Linked to Emotional Eating in Obese Women Relieving from Bariatric Surgery.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Eating rate is associated with BMI and weight gain in various populations, and is a factor modulating the risk of complications after bariatric surgery. The aim of the present study is to determine whether common difficulties to change eating rate in subjects with obesity candidate to bariatric surgery, could be due to more extensive abnormalities in eating behavior.

METHODS: A self-administered questionnaire was distributed to 116 consecutive female patients attending a nutrition consultation for obesity in a specialized center in France. This questionnaire explored eating rate (on an analog 10-point analog scale; a score ≥ 7 defines rapid eating), degree of chewing, signs of prandial overeating and scores of emotionality, externality, and restrained eating.

RESULTS: Average age of the study population was 38.4 ± 12.7 years. Mean BMI was 45.5 ± 6.7, and eating rate was 6.3 ± 1.8. Rapid eating was present in 50.0% of the population. There was an inverse relationship between eating rate and degree of chewing (r = -0.59, p < 0.0001). The proportion of "rapid eating" patients was significantly higher among those who responded "all the time", "very often" or "often" (63.1%), as compared to "sometimes" or "never" (25.0%) to the question "Do you feel like you eat too much?" (p < 0.0001). There was a significant positive correlation between eating rate and emotional eating score (r = 0.30, p = 0.001) and external eating score (r = 0.30, p = 0.001), but not with restrained eating score.

CONCLUSION: These data show that rapid eating, by being potentially associated to emotional eating, must be considered as an important issue in bariatric surgery.