A study now lends support to the idea that meal-time distractions   can mask the clues that we really have eaten quite enough. Moreover, it finds, the caloric fallout of not paying attention to what we're eating doesn't necessarily end when a meal is over.     Rose Cooperfrom England, and her colleagues gathered 22 men and an equal number of women for an experiment. Each person dined alone, continuously receiving nine small shares of food items. These ranged from cheese twists and potato chips to carrots, cherry tomatoes and sandwiches or sausage rolls.     Because the goal was to test the potential impacts of distraction on fullness, the researchers randomly assigned half of the participants to eat in front of a computer--and to gain as many wins as possible at the "card" game. Everyone else was told to focus on the sensory qualities of their meal.      According to their instructions, the participants ate all of the food given to them. Yet people who played a computer game during lunch found their meal less filling than the mindful eaters had. Game players also swallow down twice as many cookies, almost an hour later, when they were allowed all the dessert they wanted (in the name of a taste test). The British scientists present their findings in the February American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. The real question is why distracted eating should impact snacking. It appears, the scientists say, that memory plays some tricky role in how we register what we eat and the degree to which it satisfies.  Interestingly, eight years ago, Britta Barkeling of Huddinge University in Stockholm and her colleaguesreportedsomewhat related findings. Their 18 overweight subjects had no choice other than to get rid of everything but lunch, on one day--because they were blindfolded. Compared to a day when they could view what they were dining on, these people consumed only three quarters as many calories. Yet even hours afterward, they reported being no less full than on the day they had been able to see their plates. Of course dining in the dark isn't practical. And sometimes what we eat doesn't really invite our   attention. But there is certainly a growing mountain of data indicating that mindless eating is a waste of resources, a risk to our waistlines--and a costly threat to health. Rose Cooper and her colleagues did the experiment in order to   _  .
show that all the people enjoy snacks prove that playing computer games is harmful while dining find possible effects of distraction on fullness test the impacts of eating snacks on different people