Relaxing in front of the TV with some treats may seem like the perfect night in over Christmas and the New Year.
But if you want to keep those festive pounds off this Christmas, you need to be careful where you eat not just what you are eating.
Researchers have found that you're likely to consume far more if you snack in front of the TV than scrolling through your phone or simply doing nothing because you are too distracted to register how much you are eating.
In fact, a US study into eating patterns found that we munch our way through around 25 per cent more calories when we are watching TV compared to eating with the screen off.
Psychologists from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts investigated how the use of technology - TV or smartphone - affected how much 114 male and female volunteers ate compared to when there were no such distractions.
All the volunteers thought they were taking part in a study about multitasking so they were crucially unaware of the real purpose of the study.
They were offered the same selection and quantity of crisps and M & M chocolates and split into three groups, one watching anything they wanted on TV, one looking through their smartphone and the final one given no distractions.
And the findings, reported in the journal Physiology and Behaviour, revealed that the TV watchers ate considerably more than the non-watchers, averaging 164 calories each, compared to 131.
Meanwhile, there was little difference between the smartphone users and those who ate with no distractions.
'Our findings suggest that TV viewing is likely to promote overeating and unhealthy eating patterns,' said the psychologists who carried out the research.
'When it comes to the question of 'to stream or not to stream', it is likely that avoiding TV viewing while eating snacks and meals is an important recommendation to maintain attention towards eating and to promote better behavioural health.'
They concluded TV watchers ate more because 'TV is a distracter and the brain doesn't register exactly what and how much food we have eaten leading to feelings of hunger'.
And they believed that conversely eating did not increase during smartphone use because although users' brains were occupied, both hands were busy operating the device while TV was a largely hands-free activity, leaving viewers free to eat.
According to the researchers, overeating promotes more premature mortality and illness than the combined effects of alcohol, tobacco, and illicit drugs.
