Nutrition: the vicious circle of industrialized food
No one wants to be obese or likes to become so. Often these people are disparaged, sometimes they are even rejected verbally or just by turning their heads away. Misunderstood, those who are overweight suffer from their physical condition.
Judged as weak-willed or lazy. The reasons for this weight gain do not always depend on the person himself.
Admittedly, a sedentary lifestyle , lack of physical activity, an unhealthy lifestyle and a harmful environment are all factors that promote obesity. But sometimes these factors are not alone. A recent scientific study carried out by researchers from the University of Sydney (1) shows that because of the addictive effect of junk food , the reward circuit is found to be biased. And it’s a whole vicious circle that is thus set up.
An experiment first conducted on rats
Professor M. Morris, from the UNSW School of Medical Sciences in Australia, and his team of researchers have associated sound cues with particular flavors. They note that rats fed a healthy diet no longer respond to a signal linked to an abuse of ingested flavor. Yet it is this natural mechanism that protects humans from possible overeating.
On the other hand, rats fed junk food for at least two weeks and which receive a surplus of 150% of kilocalories, begin to adopt a completely different behavior. They abuse, even more, cakes and fatty products but, there is the rub, they sulk, for a certain period of time, a healthier, more balanced food which would make it possible to readjust the basal metabolism of the rodents.
Thus these ongoing experiments demonstrate that junk food induces even more junk food with a return to normal which is not self-evident.
Published and validated conclusions
After the rat, these studies are continued in humans where exactly the same thing happens. Habituation to a regular diet that is too fatty, too salty and too sweet is excessively rapid.
The results of this study are published in the journal “ Frontiers of Psychology ”. Overconsumption of food forces the reward circuits into neuro-adaptation and weakens the capacity for self-control. Obesity is experienced as a form of food addiction. Scientists have found that junk food causes profound changes and long-term alterations in a specific part of the cortex, the one responsible for decision making.
We understand better, through this, why overweight people tend to be stigmatized and are treated as beings who have no will. In five days, whether rats or humans, all lose control of their common sense when it comes to nutrition . Exactly as in the phenomena of drug addiction.
Overeating is a drug
American scientists from the ” Scripps Research Institute ” have demonstrated that a molecular mechanism leads to drug addiction and explains this compulsive diet that encourages obesity (1) . There too, these are rodents which, fed on a regular basis with fatty foods, develop addictive behavior, similar to heroin addiction. The phenomenon of addiction , whether related to drug addiction, alcohol, gambling, junk food, etc. persists for weeks. These data show that the overconsumption of food that is pleasing to the taste and to the sense of taste, such as sweet products for example, becomes a drug in the same way as any other. This is what the CNRS had demonstrated quite recently (see our previous article on this subject )
Stephen Paul is the lead author and founder of My Health Sponsor. Holder of a diploma in health and well-being coaching with more than 200 articles in the field of health, he makes it a point of honor to offer advice based on reliable information, based on scientific research, and verified by health professionals.