There is a growing body of data which points to poor appetite regulation playing an important role in the development of overweight and obesity. Our current sedentary lifestyle makes the ability to balance energy intake with a relatively low expenditure challenging for many people. Identifying foods which may suppress appetite, lower energy intake yet not increase hunger may be the dieter’s Holy Grail, but whilst mechanisms which underpin appetite regulation are gradually being uncovered much is still poorly understood. Is the inability to prevent weight gain a result of poor satiety and constant hunger, or do the sensory aspects of food such as pleasantness, palatability in addition to ready accessibility overwhelm our eating behaviour?

Certainly many and varied factors may encourage dietary over-consumption. We live in an environment of inexpensive, readily available foods, with access to wide and varied choices, ‘fast’ foods, snack foods and considerable food advertising. Against this background the characteristics of food items consumed may still have a role to play in the regulation of intake, including for example macronutrient content and composition, energy density, food form (beverages vs solid foods) and portion size. Certainly humans appear to have a poor defence against overeating, and weight gain rather than loss is common. Factors such as preference for high-fat, attraction to palatable foods, poor response to ‘stop eating’ satiety signals, disassociation between feelings of hunger and food intake may all vary between individuals but it has been suggested that a susceptibility to weight gain may in general be characterized by preferential selection of high-fat or high-energy density foods, and large (big meal sizes) and more frequent (meals plus snacks) eating episodes.

Studies investigating appetite regulation provide some evidence that changes in macronutrient content and composition, energy density and portion size may offer the best way to attain changes in intake. Since high-fat high-energy dense foods encourage overeating with few ‘stop eating’ satiety signals this has been an area of considerable interest, however investigations with novel lipids aiming to develop enhanced satiety products have so far met with mixed results. Conversely, higher protein diets appear to aid appetite regulation and may be useful for weight control.

Whilst there is no magic appetite-suppressing bullet to be found within our diet, it is clear that public health recommendations for a lower-fat, lower-energy dense diet are not unreasonable and if followed are likely to assist in the physiological control of hunger and food intake and in turn may provide an aid to weight control.

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