Why we over eat

So I picked up Septembers issue of Scientific American, which happened to be their food issue. They had a super interesting article about how food addiction works, and what is going on in the brain. Basically science has discovered that people who are over weight tend to have high levels of leptin. Leptin is the chemical in our brain releases to tell your body that you are full. This seems crazy right? If they have higher levels of leptin why the heck are they over weight? Apparently their leptin levels are actually raised by their eating habits. Consistent over eating has lead to a desensitization to the leptin which leads the brain to regulate by sending out more leptin. What's more delicious foods actually stimulate the release of dopamine in the reward system of the brain, and like any addiction the more you eat these types of foods the more your brain wants the reward, and the more of the reward it takes to satisfy the brain. So we eat cheesecake, and we over do it, and over time our brain craves more and more, and it takes more and more to satisfy.

Food addiction is real. And it is amazing what it does to your brain. The study highlighted was done with rats. They gave some rats bland food, and some rats delicious junk foods. They then gave the rats a shock preceded by a blinking light. The rats eating the bland food would see the light and run away from the shock, but the rats eating the junk food would see the light and stay to eat. This follows the idea that even though we know we are destroying our  health we still eat ourselves to death. Diabetes, heart disease, and all the other horrible problems that come with obesity, we ignore them. And the earlier explanation of brain response shows us that we are not ignoring it because we are lazy, or stupid, we ignore because our brains crave that reward, we are addicted.

You can read more in depth about this in Scientific American September 2013 issue

This is part of the reason it is so hard to lose weight for some people. This is part of the reason we struggle, and many times fail over and over again in our attempts. This doesn't mean it's impossible. This also is not an excuse. But it is super interesting and somewhat validating for those who have struggled.