Do you frequently switch back and forth between your smartphone and other digital devices? There’s new evidence that these constant tugs on our attention could be putting us at risk of developing unhealthy eating habits.
The research on digital devices
Three institutions—Rice University, Dartmouth College and The Ohio State University—joined forces to study the effects of switching between forms of digital devices. They found that people who did so frequently were more likely to be overweight or obese or have poor self-control.
“Increased exposure to phones, tablets and other portable devices has been one of the most significant changes to our environments in the past few decades, and this occurred during a period in which obesity rates also climbed in many places,” says Richard Lopez, Ph.D., lead researcher on the study. “So, we wanted to conduct this research to determine whether links exist between obesity and abuse of digital devices—as captured by people’s tendency to engage in media multitasking.”
What MRI scans showed
In addition to finding a link between higher BMIs and more body fat and media multitasking through a simple questionnaire, the researchers also noticed that when shown images of unhealthy foods, people who admitted to high multitasking between digital devices showed increased activity in two brain regions that are associated with rewards. Known as the ventral striatum and orbitofrontal cortex, these areas both play a role in addiction and the formation of unhealthy habits.
“Such links are important to establish,” says Lopez, “given rising obesity rates and the prevalence of multimedia use in much of the modern world.”
More research needs to be done as these findings only suggest a correlation between distractibility, obesity and multitasking on digital devices.
The results of the study were published in a paper in the journal Brain Imaging and Behavior.
