Weight is controlled by eating patterns, not by foods or drugs : Reply to comments on “Satiety. No way to slim”

The five papers in this special section of Appetite seem to agree that augmentation of satiety at an unspecified delay by use of a medication or food product in an indeterminate context provides no assurance that the substance contributes to reduction of obesity. Rather, satiety that slims is a specific pattern of eating that reduces the rate of energy intake while that pattern persists. These scientific principles have major implications for research that could provide the evidence needed to regulate claims to deliver weight-controlling satiety or to reduce discomfort allied with hunger arising from attempts to reduce weight. Since satiating efficacy is an attribute of a specified pattern of eating, it cannot be the property of any substance, even one that supports such appetite-reducing behaviour. Hence the evidence required depends on identifying the eating customs that are effective in long-term control of weight, in words that enable members of the public to make their own selections among those obesity-preventative practices and to use a food or a drug in a way that supports such a dietary habit. We hope that these four comments and our more extensive reply help to clarify issues that are crucial to slowing the rise in obesity.

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► The effect of a food or drug on hunger and its sating varies among eating customs.
► Claims to suppress eating or related sensations need to show the efficacy in weight reduction that many eaters want.
► Regulation of foods or drugs needs research on the social and biological mechanisms of weight control by eating habits.