Obese People Are Less Likely To Cope With Food Cravings

Thin people may be able to summon more mental defenses to resist tempting, high-calorie foods than obese people, researchers said on Monday.
Brain scans of thin people who looked at pictures of high-calorie foods showed increased activity in a region of the brain used for impulse control, but obese people showed little activity in this region, the researchers found.
"I think there essentially may be biological reasons why people can't necessarily control their desire for food," said Robert Sherwin of Yale University School of Medicine in Connecticut, who worked on the study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.
The study is part of a push to understand the underlying biological processes that contribute to obesity, which affects more than one third of adults and nearly 17 percent of children in the United States.
Researchers at Yale and the University of Southern California used functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, to examine areas of the brain that become active when a person views images of high-calorie foods, healthy foods like fruits and vegetables and non-food items.
The study involved 14 healthy people -- nine thin and five obese volunteers -- who underwent brain scans two hours after eating. The researchers manipulated blood sugar levels, testing the subjects when they had normal and low blood sugar levels.
They found that when blood sugar levels were low, brain regions called the insula and striatum associated with rewards are activated, signaling a desire to eat.

The prefrontal cortex, which normally dampens signals to eat, was less able to put the brakes on signals generated from the striatum to eat.
That was especially true in the obese study subjects who were shown pictures of high-calorie foods.
But when blood sugar levels were normal, the thin study subjects showed greater activity in the prefrontal cortex, and this reduced activity in brain regions involved in rewards.
"There is a controller -- a higher function that controls your reward centers. That controller is deficient in people with obesity. They don't activate that system," Sherwin said in a telephone interview.
He said larger studies are needed to confirm the findings, but the study does suggest that obese people may be less able to shut off parts of the brain that drive food cravings.
"That probably contributes to their obesity," he said.
Source: msnbc.com

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The Diet Pills Prescription Rate Raises To 65% in The UK

STRESSED-OUT Brits are comfort eating to make themselves feel better – then swallowing best diet pills to help them lose weight.
Diet pill prescriptions have soared by 65% in the past year, say pharmacists, while sales of other slimming products sold over the counter have gone up 20%.
Depression and stress are the main triggers for piling on weight for 12.5% of people, who can start becoming obsessed with their body shape as early as three years old. Slimmers are also feeling extra pressure to be thin and many are falling victim to obesity ­discrimination.

National Obesity Forum head Professor David Haslam said: “Discriminating against the obese is deplorable, with the psychological aspects of obesity often overlooked.”
The big rise in diet pill use is likely to be because it’s seen as an easier option than changing eating habits or hitting the gym, experts say.
A spokesman for Co-operative Pharmacy, which carried out the study, said: “While medication can help to promote weight loss in certain circumstances, it is not a substitute for a healthy lifestyle and exercise.”
The Department of Health added: “Clinical guidelines on obesity make it clear that drug treatments should be prescribed only if diet and exercise have been tried and after discussion of the risks and benefits.”

Read more: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2011/07/29/diet-pill-prescriptions-rise-by-65-115875-23304061/#ixzz1Tal8SCfV

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How bad eating habits prevent women from becoming slim

Many American women desire to lose weight, and a new survey shows that desire has led 65-percent of those between the ages of 25 and 45 to develop unsafe eating behaviors.

Self Magazine in partnership with the University of North Carolina surveyed more than 4,000 women online to gain an unfiltered understanding of their eating habits and they way they view their bodies. The results show there are many American women who, while they don`t have a defined eating disorder, do have unhealthy eating habits.

The unhealthy eating habits range from cutting calories to a dangerously low level to skipping meals on a regular basis. The survey found 16-percent of women have dieted on 1000 calories a day or fewer and 37-percent of women between the ages of 25 and 45 have skipped meals in an effort to thin down. Dietician Lori Smith says breakfast is the meal skipped most often..

"If I start eating breakfast, then I`m hungry the rest of the day, so they feel that`s one way to curb their intake is just by skipping breakfast so begin with," says Smith.

But Smith says breakfast is the one meal that jump-starts the metabolism and helps most in weight-loss efforts. One of the most alarming finds is that 31-percent of American women have taken part in some type of purging activity. Psychiatrist Elsa Remer says purging can consist of vomiting, laxatives, over exercising, or weight loss pills.

"Weight loss programs, weight loss pills, LA weight loss, they`re marketing to people that want to lost weight whether they need to or not," says Remer.

And according to Self`s survey, 53-percent of dieters admit they are already at a healthy weight.

"It`s like this unattainable goal that if we were to weight this, life would be better," says Remer. "We would work better, I would reach my success, and we get to that goal weight and it`s still not good enough so we keep going."

Remer says disordered eating habits become an eating disorder once they begin to cause physical problems and keep a person from enjoying their everyday life.

The Self Magazine survey offers many other statistics on disordered eating among American Women.

75-percent of women report disordered eating behaviors or symptoms consistent with eating disorders, so three out of four have an unhealthy relationship with food or their bodies.
67-percent of women (excluding those wiht actual eating disorders) are trying to lose weight.
39-percent of women say concerns about what they eat or weigh interfere with their happiness.
27-percent would be "extremely upset" if they gained just five pounds.
26-percent cut out entire food groups.
13-percent smoke to lose weight.
12-percent often eat when they`re not hungry, 49-percent sometimes do.

www.kfyrtv.com

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