Are you loading up on food marketed as fibre-rich and filling in hopes of losing weight? New research suggests you may be disappointed. Scientists say there is no link between satisfying our appetites and how much we actually eat.
British scientists from the University of Sheffield say that while some foods may fill us up, they won’t stop us from eating more. In a large-scale review, the doctors say they’ve debunked the myth that food can control appetite and calorie intake and, in turn, help us lose weight.
“The food industry is littered with products which are marketed on the basis of their appetite-modifying properties. While these claims may be true, they shouldn’t be extended to imply that energy intake will be reduced,” lead study author, Dr. Bernard Corfe, said.
“For example, you could eat a meal which claims to satisfy your appetite and keep you feeling full-up for a long period of time but nonetheless go on to consume a large amount of calories later on.”
You know it’s true: after eating a healthy, satisfying lunch you still cave and eat a slice of chocolate cake if it’s presented to you at work. You could be dieting and eating carefully planned, filling meals but the scent alone of fresh-baked bread could make you give into temptation, Corfe told Global News.
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Corfe specifically studies fibre and how it might help to prevent colorectal cancer. In this meta-analysis, he pored over 462 studies dating back to 1999 that looked at appetite next to how much people actually ate.
Appetite ratings – how hungry or full study participants said they were – “failed” to match up with how many calories they took in for 50 per cent of studies. Only six per cent of all of the studies found a direct statistical relationship between appetite and a lower calorie intake.
(What’s troubling is that some studies that found no link between filling foods and eating fewer calories didn’t emphasize this finding.
Corfe said researchers could have “panicked and not reported it,” but that experts need to make consumers aware of their findings.
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We shouldn’t blame ourselves either.
“Your own perceived motivation to eat is a fairly poor motivator of what you’ll go on to eat. We regularly override our commands to eat,” Corfe told Global News.
“There’s a whole load of complex factors aside from how full you feel. We’re all susceptible to other signals,” he said.
If you’re turning to certain foods to try to fill up and lose weight, rethink your approach. Corfe said you’re better off zeroing in on where weight gain is coming from – is it a lack of exercise, too much snacking in front of the TV, or eating out too much, for example?
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While beans, lentils, apples and other fibre-rich foods have been touted as weight-loss aids, Corfe said the science is “still conflicted” on that, too.
Fibre has been central to Corfe’s research and he said it’s been tied to so many health benefits other than weight management.
“If you look at populations of people who eat high-fibre foods, they have a better body composition profile, but that logic hasn’t extended to sustaining weight loss,” Corfe warned.
“It’s not a good place to start for an attempt to lose weight,” he said.
Read Corfe’s full findings.
carmen.chai@globalnews.ca
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