Table 2.

Baseline differences in the rate and regularity of food pellet consumption within meals in DR and DIO rats

	Dark phase		Light phase
Statistical parameter for inter–pellet interval	DR	DIO	DR	DIO
Mean	2.44 (11.47) ± 0.07	2.27 (9.68) ± 0.07*	2.52 (12.43) ± 0.06	2.36 (10.59) ± 0.07*
Standard deviation	0.38 ± 0.01	0.42 ± 0.02	0.37 ± 0.03	0.36 ± 0.01
Kurtosis	8.35 ± 1.41	14.31 ± 2.86*	5.32 ± 1.41	6.90 ± 2.04
Entropy	0.31 ± 0.01	0.30 ± 0.01	0.39 ± 0.01	0.38 ± 0.01

Rate and regularity of eating within meals in genetically selected diet-induced obesity-resistant (DR) and susceptible (DIO) rats. Statistical parameters (expressed as mean ± s.e.m.) describe the log-normal distribution of consecutive, nocturnal, within-meal interfeeding intervals (IFIs) of male DR and DIO rats (n = 8–9 genotype) studied on two consecutive days at 77–78 days of age. Parameters were calculated from the ln-transformed duration of interfeeding intervals. Therefore, the mean and s.e.m. are expressed in ln (s) units; the parenthetical value for the ‘Mean’ parameter represents the back-transformed average (s) to facilitate interpretation. For entropy analysis, histograms were constructed from log-transformed IFI that fell from e^1.66 to e^5.66 s (∼5.26–287.15 s), with a bin width of e^0.2. Asterisks denote significant differences:

^*P < 0.05 compared to DR rats (Student's t test).