Overweight people may respond more to a piping hot pizza, but they don't necessarily eat more of it in a single sitting.
To study if overweight and lean people respond differently to food cues and, how the mind translates these different levels of desire-to-eat, researchers enrolled 52 normal weight and 52 overweight American women in the study, and exposed them to the sight and smell of pizza and measured their mouth-watering, as well as their psychological responses.
While lean participants didn't salivate much more once they saw and smelt the pizza, the overweight participants salivated about a third more than their lean counterparts once the pizza showed up. They also had more desire to eat, measured by a standard scale, than the lean study subjects. However, the overweight participants didn't eat more, even after being told to eat as much as they would like.
The findings suggest that is that the overweight don't necessarily eat more when at the table, but, because of their heightened sensitivity to the cues, they are more attracted to the food. However, further study is needed to find out why overweight people are more turned on by food - whether they are born that way or behave such due to their eating habits learned and developed over time.
To study if overweight and lean people respond differently to food cues and, how the mind translates these different levels of desire-to-eat, researchers enrolled 52 normal weight and 52 overweight American women in the study, and exposed them to the sight and smell of pizza and measured their mouth-watering, as well as their psychological responses.
While lean participants didn't salivate much more once they saw and smelt the pizza, the overweight participants salivated about a third more than their lean counterparts once the pizza showed up. They also had more desire to eat, measured by a standard scale, than the lean study subjects. However, the overweight participants didn't eat more, even after being told to eat as much as they would like.
The findings suggest that is that the overweight don't necessarily eat more when at the table, but, because of their heightened sensitivity to the cues, they are more attracted to the food. However, further study is needed to find out why overweight people are more turned on by food - whether they are born that way or behave such due to their eating habits learned and developed over time.