Study Identifies Five Distinct Patterns of Overeating, Suggests Routes for Personalized Interventions

Researchers at Northwestern University say overeating does not present as a single behaviour but instead clusters into five distinct patterns, a finding they describe as a potential roadmap for more personalised interventions for people with obesity.

The team monitored 60 adults with obesity for two weeks using wearable sensors and a mood‑tracking mobile app, then analysed the combined behavioural and contextual data. Their study, published in npj Digital Medicine, identified five overeating phenotypes that differed by setting, timing and psychological drivers, and authors said the patterns reflect interactions among environment, emotion and habit.

The first pattern, labelled “Take‑out Feasting,” describes people who tend to overconsume restaurant‑sourced or takeaway foods, often in social settings. The researchers note the ubiquity of take‑out options, large portion sizes and high palatability can prompt automatic eating that overrides internal hunger cues when food is central to a social occasion.

A related but distinct pattern, “Evening Restaurant Reveling,” captures individuals who overeat while dining out with family or friends. The study authors pointed to prior research indicating that people commonly eat more in groups than alone, a phenomenon attributed to longer meal duration and social norms that affect portion intake.

“Evening Craving” describes a third phenotype in which participants reported nighttime eating of self‑prepared meals, characterised by biological hunger or a desire to unwind at the end of the day. The authors linked this pattern to evidence that disruptions of circadian rhythms and later‑day eating can increase appetite and preference for energy‑dense foods.

A fourth pattern, termed “Uncontrolled Pleasure Eating,” emphasises hedonic drivers: overeating for pleasure and episodes of loss of control during activities such as work or study. The researchers said cognitive load in task‑related environments can impair self‑regulation and lead to mindless eating.

The final phenotype, “Stress‑driven Evening Nibbling,” involves eating in the evening in response to stress, loneliness or negative emotions rather than physiological hunger. The paper notes that emotional eating can favour high‑calorie “comfort” foods and that stress‑related rises in cortisol have been associated with increased craving for energy‑dense items.

Corresponding author Nabil Alshurafa said the diversity of patterns demonstrates ‘‘the complex dance between environment, emotion and habit’’ and that identifying distinct phenotypes opens the door to targeted approaches rather than one‑size‑fits‑all recommendations. The authors propose that digital monitoring combined with contextual information can inform personalised behavioural interventions and clinical strategies for weight management.

The study’s sample consisted of adults with obesity monitored for a relatively brief period, and the authors acknowledged limitations common to observational monitoring studies, including sample size and the short monitoring window. They called for larger, longer studies to validate the phenotypes across different populations and to test whether interventions tailored to each pattern improve outcomes.

Public health organisations, including the British Heart Foundation, already recommend several pragmatic strategies that may help reduce episodes of overeating regardless of phenotype. Those suggestions include avoiding extreme hunger by maintaining regular meals and snacks, slowing down and eating mindfully to better recognise fullness cues, and choosing more filling foods such as lean proteins, legumes and high‑fibre grains and vegetables. Waiting 20 minutes before taking more food can allow satiety signals to register, and preparing more meals at home can reduce exposure to large portion sizes commonly served by restaurants and take‑aways. The guidance also advises against assigning an elevated or forbidden status to particular foods, saying that planning smaller, regular portions of preferred treats can reduce the tendency to overindulge when they are available.

Clinicians and behavioural scientists not involved in the study said the work aligns with a growing emphasis on precision behavioural medicine that tailors support to individual patterns and contexts. Translating phenotype identification into routine care will require tools that can reliably and unobtrusively capture eating context and affect over time, along with trials to establish which tailored strategies change behaviour and improve metabolic and psychosocial outcomes.

The Northwestern team plans to extend the research to broader populations and to evaluate digital or behavioural interventions designed to match specific overeating phenotypes. If validated, such approaches could provide clinicians with evidence‑based options to address the environmental, emotional and habitual drivers that contribute to overeating.