People who eat quickly until full are three times more likely to be overweight, a problem exacerbated by the availability of fast food and the decline of orderly dining habits, Japanese researchers said on Wednesday.

    The findings, published in the British Medical Journal, highlight how eating styles, and not just what or how much is eaten, can contribute to an obesity epidemic fueled by the spread of Western-style affluence in many parts of the world.

    The World Health Organization classifies around 400 million people as obese, 20 million of them under the age of five. The condition raises the risk of diseases like type 2 diabetes and heart problems.

    For their study, Hiroyasu Iso and colleagues at Osaka University asked more than 3,000 Japanese volunteers aged 30 to 69 about their eating. About half of the men and a little more than half of the women said they ate until full. About 45 percent of the men and 36 percent of the women said they ate quickly.

    Those who said they ate until full and ate quickly were three times more likely to be fat than people in the "not eating until full and not eating quickly" group, the researchers found.

    They cited as causes both the availability of cheap food in big portions and habits like watching television while eating.

    To counteract the "supra-additive effect" of speedy or glut eating among children prone to obesity, parents should encourage them to eat slowly and in calm surroundings, the study found.

    日本研究人員于本周三稱，吃飯快且習慣吃到飽的人肥胖幾率為細嚼慢咽者的三倍。如今，快餐的盛行和不規律的飲食習慣導致肥胖問題日益嚴重。

    由于西式飲食的日益流行，肥胖正在世界很多地區蔓延。而該研究則主要探討了飲食方式對于肥胖流行病的影響，這其中不僅包括吃什么和吃多少的問題。該研究結果在《英國醫學期刊》上發表。

    根據世界衛生組織的統計數據，目前全球約有4億人存在肥胖問題，其中有兩千萬人為不滿5歲的兒童。肥胖還會增加患二型糖尿病和心臟病等疾病的風險。

    日本大阪大學的磯博康博士及其同事對3千多名志愿者的飲食習慣進行了調查，這些人的年齡年齡在30歲至69歲之間。其中約一半男性和略多于一半的女性稱他們吃飯時習慣吃到飽，約45%的男性和36%的女性稱自己吃飯很快。

    研究人員發現，吃飯快且習慣吃到飽的人肥胖的幾率為“細嚼慢咽且不吃那么飽”的人的三倍。

    研究人員認為，導致肥胖的主要原因是大量廉價食品的流行和不良的進食習慣，比如吃飯時看電視。

    研究指出，為了避免兒童吃飯過快或過量造成的“超相加效應”，家長應提醒孩子們在進食時細嚼慢咽，并讓他們在安靜的環境中進食。