Obesity Beating Willpower Observed In Brain Scans

the participants were deprived of food for four hours to increase hunger levels

Research done in America shows that the willpower to stop yourself consuming unhealthy and fattening food is not just some abstract mental concept but actually a specific brain function which can be measured and quantified.

The study at the Miriam Hospital in Rhode Island involved the use of magnetic resonance imaging to measure activity in different parts of the brain when participants of these clinical trials were presented with different images of food when hungry. The fMRI scans made it possible for the researchers to measure the willpower function of the brain and identify the strength of it.

The brain scans were done on 51 volunteers who were divided into three different categories. The first category were those people who were of a normal weight and had been all their lives, the second category were obese people and the third category were a group who had previously been overweight but had lost a minimum of 30lb. in weight and had been able to maintain their weight loss for a minimum period of three years.

Before scanning their brains all of the participants were deprived of food for four hours to increase hunger levels and then they were subjected to images of a range of images from low calorie food items to high calorie food items as well as a number of other bland images of natural scenery for control purposes. The fMRI brain scans constantly followed their mental activity when shown the range of images and were carefully recorded.

The researchers said that there was a clear correlation in the group of individuals who had lost a lot of weight and a greater amount of brain activity in the both the left superior frontal and right middle temporal brain regions. These specific areas of the brain are known to be connected to inhibitory control as well as greater visual attention which the researchers explained by saying that these volunteers were carefully visually analysing the food items for calorie content and were then using willpower control to prevent themselves from actually desiring those food items.

Professor Jeanne McCaffery from the Weight Control and Diabetes Research Center at the Miriam Hospital explained that they did not know whether this willpower function of the brain was natural or whether it was something which could be nurtured over years of practice. She said that more research was needed in this area.

The full study can be found in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.