Brain Scans Reveal Snacking Struggle

0:00This is Corey, keeping Sydney in the know. You're listening to Sydney News today. Researchers at the University of East Anglia ran a study showing why it's so tough to stop snacking on favorite treats. They hooked up 95 hungry volunteers to brain scanners and showed them pictures of high calorie foods like crisps, sweets, and marangs. The key finding, published in the journal Apotype, was that brain activities stayed just as strong even after people ate their fill of one snack. In the experiment, participants first ranked 11 foods from 1 to 10 on how much they liked them, things like breadsticks and jelly. They played a button pressing game where images of their top picks or empty cupboards popped up to spark the brain's reward centers, made way they chowed down on as much of one favorite as they wanted, then kept going. People reported feeling full and lost interest, hitting the wrong buttons more often to avoid food images. But their brains did not care, lighting up with the same electrical ways for the first 1,000 milliseconds

1:00each time a tasty picture appeared. This mismatch helps explain widespread struggles with weight amid constant ads for junk food on billboards, TV, and social media. Our brains treat visual cues like chocolate wrappers as hardwired triggers for craving, overriding signals from a satisfied stomach. Lead researcher Dr. Thomas Sandbrook points to evolution as the culprit. Human brains evolve for scarce, low-calorie, and ancestral foods, not today's processed calorie bombs. Chormones, like grillin' for hunger and leptin' for fullness, compete with these old instincts, letting snack urges win out no matter how stuff we feel. Appreciation to our sponsor for backing this episode. Headphones in a pillow, simple idea, surprisingly addictive, S-O-L-I-SOLYPILLO.COM.