A Detailed Analysis of Eating Behaviour

The eating behaviour of human female volunteers is expressed as bursts of intake and intervening periods of rests and the cumulative intake curve can be modeled by a quadratic equation. The curve is negatively accelerated in some women and linear in others. Hence, women can be divided into decelerated and linear eaters. Here, we have studied the eating behaviour of decelerated and linear female eaters in further detail through analysis of video recordings of the maxillary-mandibular region and recordings of the plates from which the women ate and related these to weight loss data from the plates during meals. While the amount of food eaten is similar, decelerated eaters take fewer and larger mouthfuls per meal than linear eaters and the frequency of mouthful uptake decreases towards the end of the meal. Both types of eaters chew with stable rhythm throughout the meal, with the decelerated eaters chewing faster. Author