Many of us are watching TV during a meal. It's especially frequent when we're dinning alone. It occurs that watching TV takes away attention from the eating process, disrupts our memory regarding the amount of eaten food and causes the feeling "I've barely eaten". Research from Birmingham University at England checked the influence of TV watching during lunch on post lunch food consumption.

Sixteen students were examined. They ate lunch with and without watching TV. Afterwards, at post lunch meal they were allowed to choose the cookies to go with the coffee. Everything they've eaten was measured and written, the hunger feeling and the mood were graded. Later the students wrote from their memory what they've eaten and the researchers compared student's reports to what they actually ate.

It was found that students that ate lunch while watching TV consumed more cookies than those who ate lunch without watching TV. And this without any connection to the appetite (or as I called it before: hunger level) or mood levels. In the comparison of the hunger level there were no considerable changes.

Students that ate lunch while watching TV remembered eaten less than they have actually ate. Students that during lunch focused on the meal, remembered more accurately what they've ate.

Parents to obese children should make the meal receive the full attention, without distractions that might lead to overeating. It's also recommended for adults to wait with the newspaper or the TV until meal finish.

Note: sixteen students isn't a real research, nonetheless I've decided to publish this article since we are all aware to the outcomes of this research even without conducting it, but still keep eating with TV/newspaper.