Originally published December 18 2005
Food study reveals the factors that contribute to overeating
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Dr. M. Flavia Barbano from the Universite Victor Segalen, Bordeaux 2 in France reviews a study she led that looked at the conditions that promote overeating, including stress and food availability.
It's a recipe for overeating, according to researchers who found that when rats are stressed, deprived of food and then exposed to chocolate -- they overeat.
"Our findings contribute to the understanding of how feeding behavior is regulated," Dr. M. Flavia Barbano from the Universite Victor Segalen, Bordeaux 2 in France told Reuters Health.
Working with laboratory rats, Barbano along with her colleague, Dr. Martine Cador tested three aspects of eating behavior: motivation (how bad did the animals want the food); anticipation (how excited were they to get it); and intake (how much did they eat), in relation to how hungry or satisfied the animals were and how palatable the food was.
A "key observation" in this research, Barbano said, is that foods with a higher hedonic value (more palatable) induce food intake independently of whether the animal is in a food-satisfied or food-deprived state (a.k.a, homeostatic state).
For example, when presented with a chocolate breakfast cereal, food-sated animals ate almost as much as food-deprived animals.
When palatable food and satiety overlap, "attractiveness overrides satiety -- a phenomenon known to anyone who has ever stood in a buffet line."
The researchers also assessed the motivational behavior in relation to tempting and not-so-tempting food and found that the animals ran faster to the food when they were either food-deprived or were running toward a bowl of chocolate cereal rather than a bowl of bland chow.
Anticipatory activity -- how excited the animals become in advance of eating -- "seems to be more related to the homeostatic state of the animals than to the hedonic properties of the food, the investigators say.
Even if the genesis of obesity is multifactorial -- involving both genes and environment -- "the increasing size in meal portions and the increased palatability of the food are variables to take into account when focusing in the actual epidemic," Barbano said.
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