Why We Still Want the Snack |
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People lost interest in a food after eating to fullness; brain responses to pictures of that food didn't fade.
Food cues may keep triggering learned reward signals even when hunger has already been satisfied.
Overeating may begin not with an empty stomach but with a brain that still reacts to the sight of food.
You finish a meal, feel completely full, and then someone opens a box of pastries. A moment ago, your body seemed finished with food. Now, suddenly, dessert sounds possible.
We usually think of hunger as the thing that drives eating. In one sense, that’s true. The body has a remarkably sophisticated system for regulating energy balance. When we need food, signals rise. When we have had enough, signals should help quiet the urge to eat. But modern life surrounds us with something that biology did not quite prepare us for: a constant stream of food cues. Packaging. Ads. Bakery windows. Delivery photos. The glow of a refrigerator at midnight.
A recent study in Appetite studied why we may not be able to avoid overeating when faced with these food cues. When we are full, the brain does not stop treating these cues as rewarding. Even after people had eaten enough of a food to reduce its appeal, their early brain responses to images of that food stayed largely unchanged. Part of the brain may keep saying “more” even after the body has already........