Hiromi Hirata
Kagawa Nutrition University, Japan
Title: Effect of ready-made meals on family eating styles, abnormal eating behaviours, and cognitive chewing in adolescents
Biography
Biography: Hiromi Hirata
Abstract
This study was designed to clarify the effects of consuming ready-made meals on the experience of family eating styles, abnormal eating behaviours, and cognitive chewing among female Japanese university students. Female Japanese college students (N=415) completed a self-administered questionnaire. University students who were able to objectively recall the meals and eating styles of the family in which they were raised and who could objectively perceive their family were selected as participants. The results indicated that, in comparison with adolescent female who grew up in home-made meal family, the ones who grew up in ready-made meal family tend to; 1) have more meal experience in eating alone and separate styles, 2) have eating behaviors like binge eating, less aware about family cohesiveness, and self-esteem, and 3) be less aware about mastication that they are chewing food well. In the future, understanding the relation between cognitive chewing and actual chewing, crossover study between brain science and dental science is desired. Meanwhile, it has been thought that ready-made meals has been expanded due to the increase of nuclear families and dual-income households, as well as difference of daily rhythms in family members as the children go to cram schools or engaged in club activities and such. However, it has been revealed that, from their made meal patterns, that is not always the case. What has to be noticed is some of them have been used ready-made meals due to separate themselves from the family is not irrelevant to do binge eating.