FOOD CHOICE: Exercise lessens desire for fatty foods – research
March 12, 2020 • 1 min read
-- One more tool for weight loss. But will it win fans caught in the maw of today’s global epidemic of inactivity
Before tucking into your next double cheese pizza, take a quick jog around the block – you might just eat a few less slices.
Maybe.
New research did NOT test this hypothesis.
However, it did evaluate food preferences and behaviours of 60 middle-aged, inactive, and overweight men and women.
Two groups – one prescribed exercise, the other inactive – were observed over a 12-week test period.
Non-exercising men and women showed little alteration in their feelings about food, while the exercising group’s reactions to pictures of and questions about high-calorie, fatty foods changed.
The exercising group no longer found fatty foods quite so irresistible. In psychological terms, they showed less “wanting” for the most fattening foods.
Interestingly, their scores on measures of “liking,” or how much they expected to enjoy those foods remained unchanged.
So, while they still felt that they would enjoy a cookie they did not feel quite the same drive to seek one out. They also reported fewer instances of recent binge eating.
Most, but not all, of the exercisers shed a few pounds, while some of those in the control group gained weight.
Reach for your running shoes before the pizza box.