BBC News - Brain 'can be trained to prefer healthy food'

FAB RESEARCH COMMENT:

Obesity has been shown to involve unusually strong preferences for high-calorie 'junk foods' - ultra-processed foods that are typically high in sugar and/or salt, and unhealthy fats. 

Such foods are specifically designed to be highly palatable to anyone - but they effectively appear to be 'addictive' for some people in terms of the cravings they can set up, which play a key role in both obesity and other eating disorders.

Breaking patterns of unhealthy eating is not easy, but new research using brain imaging has shown that preferences for healthy, lower-calorie foods over high-calorie ones can indeed be achieved over time. 

After successful behavioural treatment for weight loss, adults with obesity showed significant changes in activation of so-called 'reward areas' of the brain, indicating an increased preference for healthier, lower-calorie foods, and lower preference for the higher-calorie junk foods.

For details of this research, see:

• Deckersbach et al, 2014 - Pilot randomized trial demonstrating reversal of obesity-related abnormalities in reward system responsivity to food cues with a behavioral intervention.

For more information regarding food addiction, please see our recent FAB research event:

• Sugar, Fat, Food and Addiction: New Approaches to the Public Health Crisis

More news on this subject can also be found here:

• Does food addiction exist? Research finds food addicts lacking psychological inhibition

• Targeting the brain to treat obesity