Eating responses of obese and nonobese humans during dinner meals.

Observations of eating responses of obese and nonobese subjects were made in meal settings. Seven obese and seven nonobese male undergraduates were videotaped as they ate four dinner meals, two low and two high in preference, under low and high hunger conditions. As hunger and preferences increased, the amount of food eaten, the meal length, and the number of bites significantly increased. Time per bite decreased as hunger and preference increased. Obese subjects ate more grams per second than the nonobese subjects. Obese subjects also ate more high preference food and less low preference food than nonobese subjects. These findings are discussed in terms of Schachter's theory of differential stimulus orientation of obese and nonobese people and in terms of the set-point theories of Nisbett and Sclafani and Kluge.