Treating Obesity as a Result of Neurobehavioral Processes

In a new paper published in the latest issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, researchers at the Rush University Medical Center say that obesity can be viewed as a result of neurobehavioral processes. This approach may open up new ways of fighting the condition.

Up until this point, the most widely-used approaches to fighting obesity were either the promotion of self-discipline among at-risk groups or dietary counseling, surgery and other invasive procedure.

But what if we are looking at a disorder from an entirely erroneous perspective, researchers at RUMC ask. If that is the case, then this may explain the relatively poor results other methods of fighting obesity have had in the past.

When thinking of obesity as a result of neurobehavioral processes, what experts are actually saying is that the cues the human brain collects from the environment are in fact what cause them to overeat.

Scientists with the research team say that preventive medicine and behavioral experts worked together on informing the new view. The work becomes very important when considering that 67 percent of the entire US population Is either overweight or obese.

“Typically, overweight and obese patients receive education about dietary contributions to weight gain, and they are simply encouraged to fight the powerful urge to eat the delicious foods that are available almost everywhere in the environment, and instead, make dietary choices consistent with weight loss,” Brad Appelhans, PhD, says.

“Yet, we know this approach rarely works. Even highly motivated and nutritionally informed patients struggle to refrain from highly palatable foods that are high in sugar, salt and unhealthy fats,” adds the expert, who is the lead author of the new article.

Experts behind the new work say that normal-weighed people tend to stigmatize the overweight and the obese because the former perceive the latter as being unable to exercise self-control, or incapable of making healthy personal choices and exercising the will power to maintain them.

However, stigmatization was never a good catalyst for getting a group to change their ways. The new study proposes that biological and environmental factors be taken into account when dealing with people who are either obese or overweight.

Food reward, inhibitory control and time discounting are the three main neurobehavioral processes that experts believe influence obesity. Time discounting, for example, refers to the fact that we tend not to take into account long-term rewards.

“Obesity is heavily influenced by genetic vulnerabilities and a toxic food environment,” Appelhans says, quoted by PsychCentral.

““However, counselors can help patients control their weight through strategies focused on the interaction between the brain and the environment, rather than the traditional approach of encouraging patients to simply ignore or fight food cravings and eat fewer calories than they expend,” he concludes