Evidence shows that obesity is increasing in Western populations, and the metabolic abnormalities that accompany the physiological changes are starting to be understood. However, less time is spent by researchers understanding the social reason for these changes. Satiety is a major driving force in energy intake, which is usually intricately moderated by the central nervous system and gut such that food intake of traditional whole foods is not excessive to energy needs. However, it is becoming clear that the social changes of modern living are interfering with these normal physiological signals and the result is that the interaction between satiety, energy expenditure and energy intake are becoming disconnected in some way. The result is the large numbers of individuals that gain excessive weight and find it difficult to lose that weight through normal calorie restriction or exercise.
Meal pattern trends have been investigated by researchers in order to try to understand the associations between energy intakes and the patterns of obesity seen in recent decades. One such study1 in the literature reported on the meal and snack frequency of individuals in the United States. The researchers were interested in how the number of eating occasions over the last 30 years had changed, which may reflect changes in the social aspects of the general population. The study involved recording a cross-section of eating habits between 1977 to 2006 in 28,404 children aged 2 to 18y and in 36,846 adults aged over 19y. The results showed that over the past 30 years, the number of eating occasions had increased in the United States. This was highlighted particularly between 2003 and 2006 when the time between eating occasions was reduced by 1 hour.
The results from this study showed that there has been an increase in energy intake from snacks in both adults and children over the course of 30 years. Because snack food tends to differ from traditional meal time foods in terms of their lower nutritional content, this would suggest that the quality of the diet has also deteriorated. This assumption is supported by many studies that have investigated the quality of the diet in typical Western countries. In particular, consumption of whole grain carbohydrate food sources have declined, and these have been replaced with refined carbohydrates found in snacks and soft drinks. In fact the number of eating occasions that consist of beverage only snack has increased mostly amongst children. Individuals are therefore consuming food more frequently that 30 years ago, largely as low quality nutritionally poor alternatives to traditional meal time foods.
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