Here’s What Eating Too Fast Does To Your Body

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“Mindful eating” is having a moment… and with good reason.

Most Americans eat way too fast, and this bad habit can lead to major health issues over time. But let’s take this one step by step and discuss what happens to your body the moment you begin devouring your next meal.

First, you down so many extra gulps of air as you snag big bite after big bite and fail to chew thoroughly. That air gets trapped in your food on its way down to your stomach, but soon it escapes in the lovely and polite form of burps. That’s right, if you belch a lot while you’re eating or soon after you finish, you’re liking eating too fast.

Second, it’s likely that you’re not giving your esophageal sphincter enough time to open and close properly in between these quick bites, which can drastically increase your predisposition for heartburn. Ouch. That means stomach acid is finding its way all the way back up toward the center of your breastbone. And consistent bouts of heartburn can cause severe damage to the esophagus as you get older.

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Then comes those super uncomfortable feelings of being too full and bloated. These symptoms are often connected to all of that air you accidentally ingested, but they can also be linked to the fact that you ended up eating way more than your body needed to feel full and satisfied. It takes about 20 minutes from the time you begin eating for your brain to send signals to your stomach saying it’s satiated. So if you down three times as many calories as you need before your body has time to register this intake, you’re bound to feel pretty crappy. (This is where food babies and food comas come into play.)

And finally, after you finish downing your meal and you think you’re good to go, you’re more like to experience symptoms of acid reflux than slower eaters. This reaction occurs because when you eat too fast, you definitely aren’t chewing your food thoroughly, so your stomach is then tasked with breaking down bigger pieces of food than normal, which can trigger the overproduction of stomach acid to get the job done. Yummy.

So, maybe we should all stop acting like someone is going to take our dinner plates away if we don’t finish our food in under a minute and slow the hell down. Sheesh.