Nutritionist Explains Why Dinner While Watching TV Leads to Weight Gain

If you ask the scale what its biggest enemies are, it will tell you sedentary behavior and junk food. With a special nod to ultraprocessed foods and that fateful combination of sofa, pizza or a burger with an oversized portion of French fries and an endless marathon of series on your favorite platform (the dreaded ‘binge-watching or series binge). Rocío del Pozo, dietitian-nutritionist at the Los Ángeles Medical Clinic in Madrid, explains that “watching television while we eat makes us pay less attention to what we are eating.”

This “eating on autopilot” generally causes us to extend our eating time and consume more foods. In other words: more calories than we would have if we weren’t in front of a screen.

Glorious episode, bland dinner

The today’s episode has lived up to your expectations. The dinner, not so much. No matter how much care you put into preparing it, it hasn’t left you very satisfied. For the simple reason that, as the specialist in Dietetics and Nutrition points out, “the activity of the brain areas involved in flavor perception is reduced when we combine our meal with a distraction. As happens when we dine with our eyes fixed on a screen, be it television or mobile.”

An example: Leiden University asked a group of adults to memorize a series of numbers while they ate. And the longer the numbers, the less flavor they found in their foods. And there lies the problem: when we feel what we are eating has no flavor, we lose track of the food and it’s easy to eat without stopping. Or, at least, in a quantity well above what we should. Noting that this abstraction is more likely to happen with easy-to-eat foods, those that are eaten with the fingers (the famous finger food) with little attention.

Advertisements push you to eat (badly)

It’s time for the food industry to come into play, which knows very well that you’re watching TV while you dine. So, either you turn to an ad-free streaming platform or you should brace yourself for some calorie-rich tips that will whet your appetite. French fries, ultraprocessed foods, and other snacks that are little or not at all healthy, which you’ll find hard to resist.

The nutrition expert warns that children, as shown by researchers at the University of São Paulo, consume more ultraprocessed foods when they eat while watching television as a family. And it doesn’t matter that your childhood is long gone: “The evidence observed in adults is very similar.” In other words, it’s more likely to sit down to watch TV with a chicken wings-and-fries combo than with a tuna salad and arugula.

If you get distracted, you eat more; if you’re bored, you do too

Exciting scenes make us gobble down quickly, as if that mechanical gesture calms us while we watch the Demogorgon approach its victim, baring its teeth. The problem is that if the episode turns out to be a real dud, we’ll also gobble indiscriminately. As Rocío del Pozo reminds us, “boredom pushes us to eat.” So much so that in cases where the series or film does not meet our expectations, it’s highly likely that we’ll eat more to compensate and feel better.

A curious fact: Sydney’s Macquarie University conducted an experiment with two groups of adults who watched two episodes of the series Friends. One they had already seen and another completely new. And those who had to deal with the repeated episode ingested on average 211 calories more than those who enjoyed the novelty. Needless to say, these calories would rarely come from grilled steak and a tomato dressed with extra virgin olive oil. The usual is salty snacks, fried foods or foods of low nutritional quality. Those so appetizing and that do your health no favors.

Drama, tissues… and chocolate

And what if you’re having a bad day and seek comfort by watching a romantic series with your tub of chocolate ice cream? Again: a bad choice. Emotions will inhibit the sensation of fullness and you’re likely to consume a disproportionate amount of ice cream.

As the expert concludes, “our eating behaviors are also conditioned by our emotional state. When we see something that makes us feel sad, we are more likely to choose those foods that provide greater pleasure.”

In short: if you’re going to sit down to watch your favorite series, don’t forget mindful eating. Keep in mind what you’re eating, in what quantity, and why, to avoid feeling bad when you turn off the television. Your scale, but more importantly your health, will thank you.