food for thought: how the brain reacts to food can be linked to overeating

UNIVERSITY PARK, PA – The reason some people find that it's so hard to resist the end of a bag of fries or a bowl of candy can reside in the way whose brain reacts to food rewards, making them more vulnerable to overeating. 19659002] In a study with children, researchers found that when certain areas of the brain reacted more strongly to the reward of food than to money, these children were more likely to overeat, even though the child was not hungry and Shana Adise, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Vermont who led the study while earning her doctorate at Penn State, said the results give a insight into why some people may be more prone to overeating than others. . The results can also give clues on how to help prevent obesity at a younger age.

"If we can learn more about how the brain reacts to food and how it relates to what you eat, maybe answers and behavior," said Adise. "It's also an interesting population for kids, because if we can stop eating too much and obesity sooner, it could be really beneficial."

Previous research on how the brain's response to the mixed. Some studies have linked overeating with brains more sensitive to food rewards, while others have found that being less sensitive to food rewards makes you more likely to overeat.

Moreover, other studies have shown that people are willing to work harder for food than other types of rewards, such as money, are more likely to overeat and to gain weight over time. But the current study is the first to show that children who have larger brain responses than financial rewards are more likely to overeat when attractive foods are available.

"We know very little about the mechanisms that contribute to overeating" Adise said. "The scientific community has developed theories that can explain overeating, but if they have not been evaluated yet, then we wanted to go to the lab and test if a bigger brain response to anticipation and the gaining of food, compared to money, was linked to overeating. "

For the study, 59 children aged 7 and 11 made four visits to the Children's Food Behavior Lab from the state of Penn.

During the first three visits, the children received meals designed to measure their way of eating in various situations, such as a typical meal when they are hungry or snacks when they are not hungry. The children ate at each meal weighing the plates before and after meals.

On their fourth visit, the children had fMRI scans by playing several parts of a game in which they guessed if a computer would be greater or less than five. They were then told that if they were right, they would win money, candy or a book, before being revealed whether they were correct or not.

The researchers found that when different brain regions were reacting more to anticipate or "We also found that the brain's response to food versus money was related to overeating, no matter how much it was." The child weighed, "said Adise. "Specifically, we have seen that increased brain responses in areas of the brain related to cognitive control and self-control when children were getting food were associated with overeating."

Adise adds that it is important because it suggests that there may be a way to identify brain responses that can predict the development of obesity in the future.

Kathleen Keller, Associate Professor of Nutritional Sciences, Penn State, said the study – recently published in the review Appetite – – supports the theory that an increase in brain response in Areas of the brain related to rewards is associated with increased food consumption in various situations.

"We predicted that children with an increased food response to money would be the ones to overeat, and that's what we ended up seeing," Keller said. "We specifically wanted to look at children whose brains were responding to one type of reward rather than another.They were not too sensitive to all the rewards, but they were very sensitive to food rewards."

Keller said the findings provide insights into how the brain influences diet, which is important because it could help identify children who are likely to be obese or of other bad eating habits before these habits actually develop

. Overeating and other eating behaviors make it difficult to give good advice to correct these behaviors, "said Keller. "Once diets take over and you eat too long, it becomes harder to break these habits and ideally you want to keep them from becoming habits."