Scientific Insight: Obesity Renders Healthy Eating a Challenge
Cairo: Hani Kamal El-Din
Researchers from Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada, have found that individuals struggling with obesity face greater difficulty in controlling their diet due to the increased effort required to change perceptions of food utility in the brain. The findings of the study are published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Scientists asked 123 participants with obesity and normal weight to share their food preferences in various scenarios. Subsequently, the participants were instructed to focus solely on healthy eating. Throughout the experiment, researchers tracked changes in brain activity of volunteers when choosing between a natural and regulated diet within the framework of a designated “food task” using magnetic resonance imaging.
The results revealed that individuals with obesity needed to exert more effort to modify their eating behavior, particularly in recognizing the differences in the utility of balanced versus “wrong” diets. Researchers explained that a significant shift in brain activity was required for individuals with excess weight to refrain from sweet, fatty, and carbohydrate-rich snacks.
Additionally, it was found that individuals who were better able to regulate their dietary choices experienced relatively minor changes in brain activity patterns when contemplating avoiding unhealthy products. This was particularly noticeable in individuals with a low body mass index.
