It’s a common stereotype: Being lazy and sedentary makes you fat. Yet new research from UCLA suggests that the opposite may be the case.
Led to UCLA scientist Aaron Blaisdell, researchers say that mice fed a diet high in “junk food”–for humans, that’s a diet of fries, chips, and candy–took longer to complete certain tasks and took longer breaks, something typical of sedentary people.
But those who consumed a healthy diet finished these tasks twice as fast.
“Overweight people often get stigmatized as lazy and lacking discipline,” says Blaisdell, who serves as UCLA’s College of Letters professor of psychology and a member of the UCLA’s Brain Research Institute. “We interpret our results as suggesting that the idea commonly portrayed in the media that people become fat because they are lazy is wrong.”
The Research
It’s a strange finding: Becoming fat makes you lazy. But now, thanks to Blaisdell’s research, this is now a reality, according to the results from his latest study. Here’s what he did:
- Blaisdell first isolated a group of 32 female rats to test out how two different diets affected their motivation levels. He specifically used rats in this case because rats have a physiological system similar to humans.
- Next, he had the rats go on one of two diets: A diet high in processed or healthy food. They consumed this diet for a total of 3 months.
- After 3 months had elapsed, he had all of the rats play a game to test their motivation. In this case, he had them press a lever in order to receive food or water.
As for what occurred, the results didn’t necessarily surprise Blaisdell–those on the junk food diet weren’t as quick as those who ate a relatively healthy diet. For instance, those on the junk food diet took longer breaks while trying to complete the task, while taking longer to complete the actual task themselves. Those on the healthy diet took breaks that were only half as long, however.
“Our data suggest that diet-induced obesity is a cause, rather than an effect, of laziness,” says Blaisdell. “Either the highly processed diet causes fatigue or the diet causes obesity, which causes fatigue.”
To Blaisdell, this can only mean one thing: Eating too much junk food isn’t just bad for your waistline, it’s bad for your motivation levels as well.
What You Should Do
Feeling tired and unmotivated? If you’ve packed on a few pounds recently, chances are your weight could be triggering your poor motivation skills, something that you can easily reverse. To feel energetic once more, Blaisdell endorses eating a healthy diet–preferably one rich in vegetables, fruits, and lean meat.
“We are living in an environment with sedentary lifestyles, poor-quality diet and highly processed foods that is very different from the one we are adapted to through human evolution,” says Blaisdell. “It is that difference that leads to many of the chronic diseases that we see today, such as obesity and diabetes.”
Readers: Do you find that certain foods make you feel more tired or lazy? If so, which ones?
Source:
Does a Junk Food Diet Make You Lazier? – UCLA.edu
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