Junk food makes you lazy, not just fat, study shows

Regularly chowing down into the succulent, high saturated fat foods — often main culprits of heart disease — can affect our physical and mental health more than previously thought. According to a recent study published in the journal Physiology & Behavior, eating junk food, not being overweight, makes people lethargic and fat.

“Overweight people often get stigmatized as lazy and lacking discipline,” said Aaron Blaisdell, leader of the study, and professor of psychology in the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) College of Letters and Science, and a member of UCLA’s Brain Research Institute, in a news release. Blaisdell and life scientists believe that the commonly portrayed idea in the media that people become fat because they are lazy, is false. High-fat diets have been known to cause metabolic and cognitive effects, often attributed to the diet’s high content of fat when compared to unrefined low-fat diets. However, little is known about the impact of refined versus unrefined food on cognition.

The study
Two groups of female rats were fed different diets by researchers at the University of Los Angeles for a six-month period. One group ate unprocessed foods such as corn and fish meal while the other ate a diet aimed to mimic junk food; high in sugar, and lower in nutrients.
While understandably the group eating the ‘junk food’ diet gained more weight than the other, they also suffered from fatigue and became more sedentary and less motivated- ie: more lazy. In fact, those rats fed junk food took twice as many, and longer breaks during tasks than the rats eating a healthy diet, even tasks which generated rewards.

What is even more concerning is that switching these rats back onto a nutritious diet at the end of six months for nine days didn’t seem to reverse their weight gain or their ‘learnt’ laziness.

Bottom line
This could suggest that while an occasional binge of bad food – say on holiday, will not have too much of a negative effect if you generally eat a good diet and lead a healthy lifestyle,
But those who eat a poor diet over the long term may actually become lazy and fatigued, as well as gaining weight and suffering the health consequences associated with being overweight.
The research shows that switching to a healthy diet in the short term, for example a fad or pre-holiday diet, is unlikely to be sufficient to reverse any of the side effects of a diet high in junk food.
Blaisdell said “We interpret our results as suggesting that the idea commonly portrayed in the media that people become fat because they are lazy is wrong. Our data suggest that diet-induced obesity is a cause, rather than an effect, of laziness. Either the highly processed diet causes fatigue or the diet causes obesity, which causes fatigue.”

With over 25% of Americans consuming fast food every day, according to the Palo Alto Medical Foundation, and close to 50,000 fast food chains across the U.S., doctors must warn their patients about the serious complications of a high-fat diet. The efficient service, low prices, and casual atmosphere can become more than you bargained for when it comes to your health.

Sources: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/, http://www.medicaldaily.com/, http://www.sciencedaily.com/, http://www.cbsnews.com/, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/