Effects of Eating on Professional and Amateur Singers for Select Pulmonary and Vocal Tasks

Singers will often refrain from eating a meal before a performance because they believe it will interfere with breath support. As there are no objective data to support or refute this belief, the purpose of this study was to obtain pre- and postmeal data from professional and amateur singers to investigate whether increased stomach contents from eating a meal adversely affected performance on specific maximal vocal/respiratory gestures. This was a prospective, repeated measures study. Forced vital capacity, maximum phonation times, and pitch range were obtained from professional and amateur singers before, immediately after, and 1 hour after eating a meal. There were no changes in measures across conditions for either group, indicating that eating does not interfere with maximal vocal and pulmonary measures.