14 DAY TRIAL // According to the conclusions of a new scientific investigation published in the latest issue of the journal Appetite, people who have impulsive personalities are more likely to exhibit food addiction. This behavior has also been linked to higher body-mass indexes (BMI) for these individuals.
Scientists at the University of Georgia, led by clinical psychologist Dr. James MacKillop, say that people exhibiting reduced impulsivity control mechanisms are not necessarily overweight or obese. However, they add, impulsive behaviors could be correlated to a less healthy weight level, PsychCentral reports.
“Most of the programs for weight loss at this point focus on the most obvious things, which are clearly diet and exercise. It seems like craving management or managing acute desires to eat would have a natural fit within the domain of skills a person would need to eat healthily,” MacKillop proposes.
People with impulsive behaviors tend to exhibit symptoms such as negative urgency and lack of perseverance, where they behave impulsively when under stress, and cannot complete a hard or boring task, respectively. Both these phenomena can lead to binge eating and food addiction as a reward or compensating mechanism.