It is called the buffet effect, and although it is true that it is yet another marketing concept, it defines very well that craving that occurs in many people when they are exposed to a large amount of food, with the possibility of ingesting it without limit. Hotel breakfast buffets are a good example of what we know as the buffet effect, since in general terms we end up eating much more than at home, to the point of not being able to stop even when we are already full. And all for the simple fact of being able to have a large amount of food, distributed in an attractive and aesthetic way.
“We live in a time when we tend to name everything and now we talk about the buffet effect in reference to something that has always happened: that when we see a lot of food we don’t feel full,” explains the doctor and nutritionist Núria Monfulleda, from Loveyourself center, in Barcelona. Therefore, the best thing to prevent “those big free binges and the subsequent indigestion” is, directly, to avoid buffets as much as possible. “Eating a lot and more is not healthy and the buffet formats are designed for us to do it, since we find many foods very palatable, attractive, with fats, sugars, dense carbohydrates and salt, which pushes us to eat more than the check”.
For her part, the senior dietitian and psychologist Raquel López, from the Laura Jorge Nutrition and Psychology Center team, points out that this type of binge eating can occur in a timely manner without it being necessary to give it excessive importance. “By having a greater availability of food, it is logical that some people can eat more than they usually eat in other situations of their day to day. Let’s not forget that food can be something pleasant that we can enjoy, extending it over time. The problem appears at a time when “those people who tend to have a very restrictive diet in their day-to-day lives can lose control over food when they have access to it,” explains López, but concludes: “the problem is not the buffet, but the restriction and the beliefs that lead that person to impose that restriction”.
In fact, López insists that “having a bad relationship with food is multifactorial and many times it doesn’t have so much to do with how we eat, but with how much we eat. Many people who diet all their lives end up resorting to binging as an escape valve. In this sense, Monfulleda advises, whenever we feel good, “try to eat five meals a day, all of them with their corresponding dose of protein, which is very satiating, so that we will not anxiously arrive at the next meal or end up with the stocks of a buffet”. However, many people tend to skip meals arbitrarily, fast uncontrollably and live under permanent caloric restriction that is difficult to maintain over time.
It has been studied in depth by the nutritionist Jessica Laiva, who together with the journalist Paula Giménez analyzed the phenomenon of self-image in women in her book Regardless of what it weighs. “Women live with relentless pressure to have a hegemonically beautiful body. This pressure falls on our nutrition and affects our view of ourselves, our body image, our diet, our self-esteem and our health on a physical, mental and social level”. According to Laiva, this phenomenon has reached such a point that there are millions of women around the world who, even when they are at a healthy weight, spend their lives trying by all means to lose kilos in order to reach a self-imposed weight arbitrarily. In fact, even in cases where weight loss may be necessary, “the best thing to do is not diet.” For Laiva, “any miraculous diet whose objective is to lose weight at all costs will not only have consequences on health, but it can also obsess us, which is not recommended either. Any diet must go through a change of habits that takes into account four laws: quantity, quality, harmony and adequacy. If the four are not met, it cannot be said that an eating plan is adequate”, concludes the nutritionist.
Monfulleda agrees with her, and questions the myth of the so-called “yo-yo effect”. “It is not true that when you finish a diet you gain weight suddenly when you eat normally again. If the calories that our body needs daily are ingested, the weight will be perfectly maintained. The problem comes when we submit to very restrictive diets, since our body is going to ask us for all those foods that we have not given it, so that we will eat them without control and in a binge: this is when sudden changes in weight will occur. , since the caloric intake will be very high. To prevent these binges, López recommends “avoiding thoughts of prohibited foods, eating regularly and not skipping meals, having a balanced and sufficient diet and not compensating for anything after a binge.” This last point is important, since, according to López, it is also necessary to understand and accept that “eating more on certain occasions can be normal. The important thing is not to have a feeling of lack of control and to allow yourself to enjoy the moment without guilt”.
Another important point, both when we eat at a buffet and when we are faced with a large amount of food in any other situation, is learning to recognize satiety. “Only when we eat with all five senses can we realize that what we have ingested is enough and we feel satisfied. In addition, before attending to our body’s signals, it is important to create the context so that it can express itself: eat slowly, calmly, let the cutlery rest, without distraction…”, explains the nutritionist at the Center for Nutrition and Psychology Laura Jorge. Thanks to all of the above, “we can detect that we feel satiated, which occurs at the moment when we could eat more, but what we have eaten is enough, since eating more we could feel bloated.” For López, it is common to confuse bloating with satiety, which leads us not to stop at buffets and other social situations where there is a lot of food to choose from. “The main difference between the two is that bloating causes an uncomfortable sensation, while satiety generates a pleasant sensation.”
Although, if we want to avoid waste and guarantee the intake of fresh products, it is best to buy frequently in small quantities, instead of making large purchases that fill our food pantry, these large-scale purchases would not be either, according to López , the cause of binge eating. “Buying little as a technique to avoid binge eating is insufficient, since the important thing is to know the role that binge eating plays in each person and work on it,” says López.
