In a 2012 study, researchers from the University of Surrey found that people who ate while distracted tended to overeat. Jane Ogden, professor in health psychology and one of the researchers on the study, even says that you don’t get as full when you eat at your desk because of work’s distractions.
“If you eat at your desk when you’re distracted through working and you’re not giving yourself a proper lunch break, then the food you eat doesn’t fill you up as much,” she says. “You don’t remember that you have eaten in the same way, and you don’t code food in the same way. You’re more likely to feel hungry in the afternoon and then eat more.”
Many of the negative effects could also relate to sedentarism, or the act of sitting in general. A study conducted back in 2012 on 800,000 Brits found that those who sat for the longest periods of time were twice as likely to get heart disease, diabetes and die of an early death.
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