Don’t blame your adolescent kid for eating high calorie food — he or she may not be able to control the urge for burgers, pizzas and french fries due to an impairment in a brain region linked to self-regulation, says a study.
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What findings suggests?
- The findings have revealed that adolescents, who are at an increased risk of obesity.
- In addition,have progressively less neural activity in circuits of the brain that support self-regulation and attention.
- The study establishes that risk for obesity isn’t driven exclusively by the absence or presence of urges to eat high-calorie foods.
- But also, and perhaps most importantly, by the ability to control those urges.
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- For the study the team used fMRI to observe relationship between neurological activity and risk for obesity in overweight compared with lean adolescents.
- In adolescents who were obese or who were lean but at high familial risk for obesity.
- Furthermore, they observed less activation in attention and self-regulation circuits.
- Brain circuits that support attention and self-regulation showed the greatest activation in lean/low-risk adolescents.
- In addition, less activity in lean/high-risk participants and least activation in the overweight/obese group.