Dieters who lack the self-control needed to eat a healthy diet can stop searching far and wide for the secret to weight loss. The key to dieting success could lie within their own body, in the architecture of their brain.
According to a today, differences in the structure of the prefrontal cortex in our brains may explain why some people make healthier food choices than others.
French scientists looked at the data of 123 healthy individuals, aged 30 years old on average, across four studies that tested participants’ dietary decision-making processes and food regulation.
They concluded that people who have larger sections of the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain involved in decision-making, may have an improved ability to exercise self-control over what they eat.
The study’s authors suggest that since brain structure can change over time, these brain regions could be targeted to promote dietary self-control and fight obesity.
“Dieting involves regulating food choices in order to eat healthier foods and fewer unhealthy foods,” the paper byand colleagues reads.
“People differ dramatically in their ability to achieve or maintain this regulation, but it is unclear why.
“[The study shows] that individuals with more grey matter volume in the dorsolateral and ventromedial prefrontal cortex are better at exercising dietary self-control.”
The study’s authors suggest that since brain structure can change over time, these brain regions could be targeted to promote dietary self-control and fight obesity.
“Our results suggest that regulatory success may result not only from momentary fluctuations in motivation and attention, but also from more stable variation in neuroanatomy,” the study says.
“An exciting avenue going forward will be to explore whether self-control training or biofeedback methods could harness neural plasticity to yield long-lasting changes in self-regulatory capacity.”
Obesity expert and research program leader within the Charles Perkins Centre at University of Sydney, says the big drawback of this study is that the participants examined were healthy. The research also lacks information on the participants’ lifestyle, which could influence their eating habits and potential to exercise self-control.
The brain’s structure can change over time, responding to new situations, environments and lifestyles.
However, he explains, the research effectively draws attention to the often ignored role of the brain in battling obesity.
Dr Fuller, author of thesays the study adds weight to what we know about neuroplasticity – the brain’s ability to change throughout life and form new connections between brain cells – and its relationship to dieting.
“The brain’s structure can change over time, responding to new situations, environments and lifestyles,” Dr Fuller tells SBS.
“So if you don’t have a greater volume of grey matter in the pre-frontal cortex of your brain, you can change that with lifestyle [modifications]… The brain is subject to plasticity in respect to lifestyle and environment.”
Dr Fuller explains how the brain responds to food and influences habitual eating. "When you have a food that is hard to resist, your brain registers it as a pleasurable experience. Dopamine is released into the brain’s pleasure centre called the nucleus accumbens. The hippocampus is then responsible for remembering that pleasure or satisfaction. It will trigger a response next time we see that food. It’s like our brain has been hijacked.”
“But if you can consistently promote self-control, you can change your brain structure and have better eating habits.”
In short, he says, you can increase the volume of grey matter related to self-control in your brain by changing your lifestyle. "When you learn new habits you form new connections - think of it as branches of the neuron growing to connect to new ones."
So how do you exercise self-control and change your brain structure if poor self-control is what prompts you to make poor food choices and gain weight in the first place?
“It takes consistent positive behaviours to create new habits and break old ones, so that you can introduce healthy lifestyles and foods into your life as a regular routine.”
We don’t want people to use ‘their brain’ as a scapegoat reason for their body weight.
Dr Fuller says breaking a bad habit or starting a positive habit takes time: around 66 days to be more specific.
“It’s not something that happens overnight,” he says. “If that cake is in front of you, you need to repeatedly say no to eating that slice of cake to create a new habit, as the food is addictive.”
He also stresses there’s no one-size fits all cause of weight gain or obesity and no single positive lifestyle change will make everyone lose weight. Weight gain and loss is a complex individual matter, caused by a combination of reasons – from the small volume of grey matter within your brain to your genes, hormones and lifestyle choices.
“We don’t want people to use ‘their brain’ as a scapegoat reason for their body weight.
“But the psychology of eating has got to be a key part of any weight loss program implemented, especially if someone has subjected themselves to poor lifestyle or eating habits over time.”
