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Everyone’s heard this one right? “It takes twenty minutes for your stomach to feel full. You should eat at a slow pace so you don’t stuff yourself.” In theory it makes perfect sense. There’s only one problem: Most Americans have been trained since kindergarten to consume an entire meal in 15 minutes.
It’s pretty much true of all of us who went to public school, and most private schools. We were given a full half-hour for lunch, but very little of those 30 minutes were actually devoted to eating. This was my particular breakdown:
- Getting from classroom to cafeteria: 2 min.
- Waiting in line and retrieving food: 7 min. (some days it was closer to 15)
- Finding a place to eat (where I wouldn’t be teased or asked to leave): 3 min.
- Socializing with my friends and eating: roughly 15 min.
- Cleanup and fetching books for the next class: about 3 min.
Now, keep in mind that while it’s possible to eat and socialize I preferred not to. It’s rude. This meant I had to bolt down my food in approximately seven minutes to make it to my next class on time. And while in elementary school, I had time on the playground to socialize with my peers; that stopped immediately after 8th grade. Lunch was the only chance I had to talk to my friends openly about how much Kurt Cobain sucked and who was going to be at the mall on Saturday. So I talked in-between shoveling french-fries into my mouth which the USDA says counts as a full serving of vegetables).
It was basically the same thing during my high school summers, when I worked at the mall. I was only working part time in those days which meant I was submitted to one of the cruelest minimum-wage indignities: the 15-minute break. The 15-minute break was the company’s way of saying, “we acknowledge that you have to eat, but that doesn’t mean we’ll budget time for it.” Usually my break was right around lunchtime and I was starving. If I felt I was REALLY running slow, I’d shop at the closest 2 kiosks which sold food, namely, the ice-cream stand and the hot butter-soaked pretzel place. If one of the crooked bosses was working (GOD, I loved them), or if I desperately needed a lunch that wasn’t a glorified 3,000 calorie snack, I’d run to the food court.
I’d jog as fast as I could down escalators, dodging the nail-buffers and the hair-flippers, and occasionally catching my handbag on railings or ornamental fountains. (If you see a person in uniform booking it through a mall like their car might be on fire, chances are they’re on their 15 minutes). I’d then do the “anxious-oh-my-God-I’m-going-to-be-late” dance while waiting in some horribly long line for burgers, or hotdogs, or greasy noodles. Upon retrieving said food I had one of two options. I could stand in front of a table (I didn’t have time to sit!) and unhinge my jaw so I could force the food down my gullet without chewing, OR I could run back to work with food in hand, and leave it in the employee’s area. I would count to 100 and then announce that I had to go to the bathroom. Then I’d grab my food and eat it in a leisurely 3 minutes while locked in the can. The only thing I really gained from my experience in retail was another pants size and frequent heartburn.
In college I had it much easier. Several days a week I had up to two hours between classes to get my daily sustenance (again subsisting of greasy noodles, fried chicken fingers or heavily processed burgers, washed down with Code Red Mountain Dew). But by age 18 the damage had been done. After twelve years of public/private school and various part-time jobs I was trained to scarf my food down at lightning speed. There was no real way to deprogram myself! Those vital twenty minutes necessary for my stomach to tell my brain to stop all traffic were by-passed completely. Only after I was done with my shark-like feeding frenzy did I get those “Uh-oh, shouldn’t have eaten that last bite of lasagna” signals. By then it was too late and all I could do was regret and reach for the TUMS. I still have this problem today. I’m at the beck and call of two toddlers at meal-times so every time I sit down it’s, “Mommy, can I have chocolate milk? Uh-oh! Mommy, I spilled! Mommy, can I have catsup? Mommy, oven’s going beep-beep!” By the time they’re done, I’ve taken maybe three bites. I can’t finish my meal afterwards and leave the kids unsupervised so I wolf down the food and chase after them. Last weekend, I went on a date with my husband to an upscale restaurant for dinner. The food took 20 minutes. We were done in ten.
So you can see two facts from this. ONE: Don’t hire me to work part-time retail in “Shirt-Folding Store Ltd.” TWO: From K-12 and beyond, most Americans are eating too fast to sense if they’re hungry at all, which is why we’re one of the most obese nations in the world. We’re trained to think that lunch is an inconvenient pause in life so we can get eating “out of the way.” Eating is something we do as we’re running out the door, or on the way to soccer practice, or between intermissions in Little Tommy’s band recital. Meal should be more than a lull in our frantic activity. The French and Italian public school programs ensure that students not only get time to eat, but also something healthy and delicious as well.
I know it’s going to be hard but we have to start trying to take back meal times. Since dinner is usually when I have the most time, I’m to try one thing tonight: I’m going to pause. Just for a moment — I don’t know when — but maybe before I reach for another bite, or seconds, or dessert. It’ll be too soon to ask my stomach if it’s hungry, but I will stop eating and talk to my kids. I might share a profound thought, share a mundane thought, share a joke, share an event, but I’ll just take a break from eating and spin out my time a little. I will try to make my 10-minute dinner last 12 minutes. Then I will ask myself again: Do I really want more chicken? Do I really need some ice cream? I might still say yes, but maybe I’ll say no this time.
Then tomorrow I’m going to do this twice.
Monica Marier’s “Fat Diaries” appears on FrumForum every Friday.
Carney // Apr 16, 2010 at 11:31 am
Is there any actual empirical evidence backing this 20 minute old wives’ tale?
Rabiner // Apr 16, 2010 at 2:23 pm
Carney:
You think it’s an ‘old wives’ tale’ that eating slower will lead to you eating less and reduce the instance of overeating?
JeninCT // Apr 16, 2010 at 2:27 pm
By stating that the French and Italian programs ensure that students not only get time to eat, but also something healthy and delicious as well you are implying that here in the US the opposite is true. Nonsense. My kids both eat very well at their school cafeterias. They also have plenty of time to eat. There are fresh fruits and vegetables available, low-fat dairy and assorted main courses.
Rabiner // Apr 16, 2010 at 3:10 pm
JeninCT:
Are you in Connecticut? I know in Los Angeles that this is definitely the case. Many schools do not have fresh fruit and vegetables, offer primarily fast food and processed food choices and not nearly enough time to eat without having to scarf your food down. 25-30 minute lunches are not enough time when it takes 10-15 minutes to get food.
At the High School I attended 10 years ago these were the daily options for food:
Taco Bell burritos, pizza hut pizza, el pollo loco 2 piece chicken meal with tortilla (nothing else with it), Top Ramen, and then whatever the cafeteria was serving which was very similar to the options offered as seen on the Jamie Oliver Food Revolution show (great show btw). Also in Los Angeles and I’m sure other major cities there are ‘food deserts’. These are characteristically poor areas that lack supermarkets. The majority of produce available in these communities are found only in drug and liquor stores and is limited to bananas and apples. Incidentally there is a very high per-capita of fast food locations in these areas as well.
ktward // Apr 16, 2010 at 9:37 pm
Wait … this is FrumForum, the political blog, right?
Then who is this Monica, and why are her inane articles actually posted here? Shouldn’t they just be linked on the side scroll along with the rest of the pop culture stuff?
JeninCT // Apr 16, 2010 at 10:12 pm
My guess is that she’s his cousin or some other family friend or relation.
However, yes, I am in CT and by fresh fruits and vegetables I am really referring to apples, bananas, and lettuce and tomato salads, and carrot sticks but there are also frozen veg served with the hot dishes. That’s not bad for school, and most kids won’t venture beyond apples and bananas anyway. Fruit is not only expensive to buy it’s expensive to serve fresh because it’s perishable. And the fact is, growing kids can handle high calorie foods. They need calories.
It just really bugs me when people complain about school lunches. I’d like to see them try to feed hundreds of kids with the same budget and the same time frame. It’s not an easy thing to do.
Rabiner // Apr 16, 2010 at 10:57 pm
JeninCT:
“And the fact is, growing kids can handle high calorie foods. They need calories.”
This belief is why we have so many obese kids. Kids cannot handle high calorie foods for the sake of calories. They can handle nutritionally dense food that can have a lot of calories but not just calories for the sake of them.
captn // Apr 17, 2010 at 7:35 pm
“Kurt Cobain sucked”
UHG!! Like a knife in my heart.
But I’m with Ktward. Seeing this article on FF brings back that song from Sesame Street, “Which One of These Things Is Not Like the Other?”
tempralanomaly // Apr 17, 2010 at 8:16 pm
Primary School – 15-20
High School – Exactly 15 minutes to eat
Boot Camp – Exactly 15 minutes to eat (After the last person to get food sat down, man we hoped that person took their sweet time, but it was a royal pain to be that person).
So I’d have to concur, we have kinda been conditioned to eat in 15 minutes or less.
JeninCT // Apr 17, 2010 at 8:51 pm
Rabiner wrote: “This belief is why we have so many obese kids. Kids cannot handle high calorie foods for the sake of calories. They can handle nutritionally dense food that can have a lot of calories but not just calories for the sake of them”
I agree, calories for the sake of calories isn’t wise, but kids need calories to help them grow. Also, kids aren’t like adults. Sometimes they’re hungry and sometimes they’re not. I cannot tell you the number of times I’ve seen parents deny hungry kids food for fear of them getting fat. It’s really sad, not to mention counterproductive.
captn // Apr 17, 2010 at 9:06 pm
I’m inclined to agree with JeninCT. Building bone, muscle and other tissue is an energy intensive process, and the effects of too few calories will be far more damaging than too many. Teenagers, especially, need an astonishing number of calories to maintain proper growth. The average 16 year old boy requires 3500 calories a day, I think, for proper development. Seeing the amount of food a teenager puts on his plate might lead many adults to think he is over-eating when he is not. I also know that when I was a teenager the reason I ate so quickly was because I was so often famished, so I just couldn’t get the food down fast enough.
I think that the availability of the internet and 100+ TV channels probably have more to do with rising obesity than over-eating. Kids ate just as much when I was young, but fat kids were rare. I remember some school years we might have one fat kid in my class, other years none. Of course, with 3 TV channels, no internet and no VCR, we spent most of our free time outside. Parents would do much better to limit sedentary activities during the week. It might also be a good idea to educate 20 somethings that the eating habits they are accustomed to will have to change as they become older.
Rabiner // Apr 17, 2010 at 9:57 pm
Captn:
“Kids ate just as much when I was young, but fat kids were rare.”
You are look at quantity of food but not quality. There is far more processed sugar in the diet of people today and children in particular. In addition portion sizes in this country has increased significantly in the last few generations. This increase in food consumption and the low quality of the food in terms of nutrition are leading reasons for obesity. In addition our public policy encourages obesity. It is more expensive to buy a bottle of water than a can of soda. It is more to buy a gallon of water than a 2 liter of soda as well. The reason for this is subsidizing corn production in this country which leads to additives such as ‘corn syrup’ being cheaper than real sugar or healthier alternatives.
“I cannot tell you the number of times I’ve seen parents deny hungry kids food for fear of them getting fat. It’s really sad, not to mention counterproductive.”
We do not have the type of poverty in this country which leads to people going hungry to the point of death. This isn’t Africa where millions die from hunger annually. I think you’re overstating this occurrence and the affect it has on the health of children.
JeninCT // Apr 17, 2010 at 10:01 pm
Another two factors that will prevent childhood obesity are breastfeeding for the first year, and preventing emotional eating.
Breastfeeding infants teaches them to stop eating when they are full. Bottlefed babies are sometimes encouraged to ‘finish the bottle’ so the formula isn’t wasted. Breastfed babies just stop when they’re full, which leads to a lifetime habit of paying attention to the feeling sated. Also, very often kids are given food (mainly treats) as a reward, as comfort for an injury or to soothe hurt feeling, when they’d be better served being given a hug and 5 minutes of attention from mom or dad.
These solutions are rarely discussed because they may offend bottle-feeding moms, and snack food producers.
JeninCT // Apr 17, 2010 at 10:06 pm
Rabiner wrote:”We do not have the type of poverty in this country which leads to people going hungry to the point of death. This isn’t Africa where millions die from hunger annually. I think you’re overstating this occurrence and the affect it has on the health of children.”
My point was not that it would lead to starvation but that it would lead to overeating, or being so hungry that kids would then eat too fast and eat too much.