Does Eating in Front of a Screen Change Your Fullness Signals

Nowadays, screens have become our best friend. We spend most of our time on screens, whether it's for leisure, education, or work purposes. We don’t put down our screens even while eating, and hence we are not aware of what it is actually causing.

Eating in front of a screen can impact our body’s signals. It can disrupt our brain-gut connection and make it much harder for our body to feel and process natural fullness signals.

What Actually Happens When We Eat In Front Of A Screen?

When we eat in front of screens, our mind divides its attention, and it fails to process the fullness signals and cannot register the food satisfaction.  Eating in front of screens can cause mindless eating. It divides our brain’s attention and delays fullness signals. It disrupts the brain-gut connection, slows digestion, and increases the tendency to overeat.
What happens to our mind?

• Delayed fullness signals- When we eat in front of a screen, it divides our attention and delays the fullness signal, and it leads to overeating.
• Food memory deficiency-  Our mind does not encode a clear memory of the food we consumed, as we are not paying attention to our food while eating, and as a result, we will feel hungry again and look for food very soon.

What happens to our body?

• Slowed digestion- Screen interference disrupts the digestion process due to lack of attention while eating that often causes discomfort, bloating, and poor digestion.
• Mindless eating- Eating while being on screen distracts our mind, and we cannot chew properly,  which leads to overconsumption and more calorie intake.

What does Ayurveda say?

Ayurveda says that eating in front of a screen can distract our mind and dampen our digestive fire, or Agni, which reduces the functioning of the digestive system and prevents it from properly noticing the fullness signal. This causes bloating, slow digestion, and other digestive problems. As per Ayurveda, mindful eating can heal these digestive problems.

Mindful Eating

In Ayurveda, mindful eating is also termed Ahara Niyama; it is as important as how you consume food. Ayurveda states that proper digestion depends on how you eat, your posture while eating, and it heavily depends on your environment and state of mind.

How to practice mindful eating

• Eliminate all the distractions- Multitasking while eating diverts attention and hinders the digestive process. Turn off your phone and television, and avoid all screens. This will help you to eat your meal properly, and it makes the digestive system work properly.
• Eat on time: When you sit down to have a meal, make sure that your previous food was digested properly, and when you actually feel hungry, do not eat without any emotional stress.
• Maintain your appropriate posture while eating: As per Ayurveda, sitting on the ground with washed and crossed legs helps the ground to feel the heat and sends signals to your mind to sit down and enter a relaxed and digestive state.  

What happens when you avoid screens while eating 

When you avoid screens while eating, it helps your body to digest food properly and avoid overeating. It helps our brain to relax and focus on the food and notice the fullness signals.

• It fosters digestion, as our mind is not distracted by any kind of distraction, so we can chew food properly, and it helps to break down the food properly so that our body can absorb the nutrients easily.
• It helps in controlling our weight as we are far away from all the distractions, so we can notice the fullness signal easily.
• Focusing on food while eating makes eating more satisfying.

Conclusion

To sum up everything that has been stated so far, yes, eating in front of a screen can change our fullness signals. When we are on a screen while having a meal, our mind is divided among various activities, and it cannot focus on chewing food properly and we ignore the fullness signal as result we overeat, and this may cause many digestive problems such as bloating, slower digestion, etc. In order to prevent these problems, we need to focus on food while eating instead of focusing on a screen by preventing all the distractions. This helps us to improve our digestion, control our weight, and eat food with pure satisfaction.

References

Television viewing and using screens while eating: associations with dietary intake in children and adolescents - PMC
Fatigue as the Chief Complaint: Epidemiology, Causes, Diagnosis, and Treatment - PMC 
Your Digestive System & How it Works - NIDDK