Reasons for meal termination, eating frequency, and typical meal context differ between persons with and without a spinal cord injury.

Overeating associated with neurogenic obesity after spinal cord injury (SCI) may be related to how persons with SCI experience satiation (processes leading to meal termination), their eating frequency, and the context in which they eat their meals. In an online, cross-sectional study, adults with (n = 688) and without (Controls; n = 420) SCI completed the Reasons Individuals Stop Eating Questionnaire-15 (RISE-Q-15), which measures individual differences in the experience of factors contributing to meal termination on five scales: Physical Satisfaction, Planned Amount, Decreased Food Appeal, Self-Consciousness, and Decreased Priority of Eating. Participants also reported weekly meal and snack frequency and who prepares, serves, and eats dinner with them at a typical dinner meal. Analysis revealed that while Physical Satisfaction, Planned Amount, and Decreased Food Appeal were reported as the most frequent drivers of meal termination in both groups, scores for the RISE-Q-15 scales differed across the groups. Compared to Controls, persons with SCI reported Physical Satisfaction and Planned Amount as drivers of meal termination less frequently, and Decreased Food Appeal and Decreased Priority of Eating more frequently (all p < 0.001). This suggests that persons with SCI rely less on physiological satiation cues for meal termination than Controls and instead rely more on hedonic cues. Compared to Controls, persons with SCI less frequently reported preparing and serving dinner meals and less frequently reported eating alone (all p < 0.001), indicating differences in meal contexts between groups. Individuals with SCI reported consuming fewer meals than Controls but reported a higher overall eating frequency due to increased snacking (p ≤ 0.015). A decrease in the experience of physical fullness, along with a dependence on a communal meal context and frequent snacking, likely contribute to overeating associated with neurogenic obesity after SCI.

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Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

Declaration of competing interest JEH has received speaker honoraria, consulting fees, and/or travel expenses from federal agencies, universities, nonprofit organizations, trade groups, and for-profit corporations to present data on consumer behavior, taste biology, and flavor perception. The Sensory Evaluation Center at The Pennsylvania State University routinely conducts product tests for industrial clients to facilitate experiential learning for undergraduate and graduate students; JEH is the Director of this facility. JEH co-founded and holds equity in Redolynt LLC; this financial interest has been reviewed by and is under active management by the Penn State Conflict of Interest Committee. None of these entities have had any role or interest in the work presented here, including study design or interpretation or the decision to publish these data. The remaining authors have indicated they have no financial relationships or other potential conflicts of interest to disclose.