title: Self-reported eating rate aligns with laboratory measured eating rate but not with free-living meals.
abstract: Methodological differences may be responsible for variable results from eating rate (ER) studies. It is unknown whether self-reported, lab-measured, and free-living ER's align. This study was the first to explore relationships among self-reported, laboratory-measured and free-living ER's. We investigated this relationship in 60 randomly selected male and female college students who were stratified by self-reported eating rate (SRER) (Slow, Medium, and Fast) from 1110 on-line survey respondents. Test day; subjects ate a prescribed breakfast (∼400kcal) at home, recording meal duration (MD); 4h later they individually ate an ad libitum laboratory pasta lunch at their own (natural) pace; remainder of the day they recorded free-living intake and MD. As expected the three self-reported ER categories aligned with lab ER (Fast=83.9±5.5, Medium=63.1±5.2, Slow=53.0±5.4kcals/min). In all ER categories at all meals, men ate faster than women (Men=80.6±30.7kcals/min: Women=52.0±21.6kcals/min). A difference in lab measured ER by SRER F=(2, 58)=7.677, post hoc Tukey analysis found fast differed from medium and slow. The three free-living meal ER's did not align with self-report categories. Findings suggest various methods of measuring ER may yield differing results, at least in this population, but results support the use of SRER as a valid measure.
authors.affiliation: Department of Nutrition and Food Sciences, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI 02881, USA. amandy@my.uri.edu
authors.forename: Amanda J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Petty
authors.forename: Kathleen J
authors.initials: KJ
authors.lastname: Melanson
authors.forename: Geoffrey W
authors.initials: GW
authors.lastname: Greene
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D004034:Diet Surveys; D004435:Eating; D005247:Feeding Behavior; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D062407:Meals; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D057566:Self Report; D055815:Young Adult