This is the surprising reason why we pile on the pounds if we spend our lives eating in front of the telly

Zoning out in front of the TV is nobody’s idea of a healthy activity.

But scientists say it could be contributing more to weight gain than simply being part of a sedentary couch-potato lifestyle.

New research suggests that the very act of eating meals in front of a screen makes you more liable to pile on the pounds than sitting around a table, even if you are otherwise healthy.

They say that being distracted by your favourite programme – or by scrolling through your phone – means your brain is less likely to register that certain foods or drinks are high in fat.

Nearly half of British people regularly tuck into meals while watching TV, or glued to their phone or computer. 

It is thought to be a major factor behind the UK’s obesity crisis, with 26 per cent of adults falling into that category and another 38 per cent considered overweight.

Scientists at Mersin University in Turkey wanted to pinpoint precisely why eating when the brain is concentrating on something else seems to contribute to weight gain.

They recruited 22 healthy women and ten men – none of whom were obese – and got them to drink either a high-fat or a low-fat chocolate drink while trying to memorise sequences of letters.

They were then also asked to rate how the drinks tasted and whether they thought they were high or low in fat. Those who had more difficult strings of letters to remember were much less likely to identify the drink that was high in fat.

Writing in the journal Appetite, the researchers said the results suggests that distracting the brain during mealtimes – by watching TV or scrolling through social media – affects its ability to regulate calorie intake.

They said: ‘Modern, fast-paced life often includes multitasking during meals, many of which are consumed in front of a television, a computer screen or with a mobile device in hand.

‘But this distraction may contribute to the development of obesity.

‘Our results show it can reduce perception of high-fat foods and this may pose a particular risk of overeating them.’ The results follow a string of similar findings, including previous studies that linked eating in front of the TV to higher body-mass index, possibly because it leads to more ‘mindless’ munching.

In children, being exposed to more TV adverts for junk food has also been found to be linked to weight gain, with a ‘significant’ correlation between the number of commercials seen and levels of youngsters being overweight.

One 2021 study found that playing a fast version of Tetris affected people’s sense of smell as they concentrated on the video game.